Ihave always held a passing interest in cosplay. When I was a child, I went to Percy Jackson fan meetings, confused yet supportive parents in tow, wearing outfits inspired by tertiary cast members just because they looked easy to do. As an adult, I hang out at nerdy cons open to the public and still point and call out when I see someone dressed as a character I know.
In 2024, after graduating from college, I became an unpaid game journalist. Despite getting no cash, it’s still pretty fun: I get review copies, my work makes it on Metacritic, I can write mostly about anything, and I often get invited to press events. One of the handful I’ve attended was CCXP (basically São Paulo Comic Con) in December that year, which ended up becoming exclusively a leisure trip as someone else ran all the meager video-game-facing stories they could find.
Even before that, I’d already been planning to debut my first proper cosplay there. It ate up way more of my budget than I thought it would, but it was great. I got recognized by a couple of people and even given a little sticker of my character. My choice — because Mouthwashing had been at the forefront of my mind during that summer — was Swansea, complete with a cardboard axe and Gatorade-filled mouthwash bottle.
It is important to highlight that I do not look the part. Youthful, wide-eyed, stick-thin, AFAB; this wasn’t exactly based on physical appearance. It’s not very often you see people choosing to become the grouchy fat mechanic, either — online, I’ve seen more cosplayers willing to play Jimmy than the Big Swan. Personality-wise, I, myself, should be more of a Daisuke, too. He’s the one in my age group, the one who frets over never becoming anyone, the Stepford-smiling boy convinced nobody believes in him.
But that’s too easy, isn’t it? It’s so easy that I never considered crawling into his skin. Daisuke is too much like me — it’d be wearing a mask of my own face, in some ways more than others. Swansea, on the other hand, is his misplaced role model, the successful family man he longs to become. A Daisuke acting as a Swansea is a more natural choice than it seems.
But that’s too easy, isn’t it? It’s so easy that I never considered crawling into his skin
There is, however, a key difference between me, the real human being who loves the character, and the other character who worships him. As the player, my hand is guided by a quasi-omniscient narrator. I’m shown things Daisuke couldn’t ever hope to witness, and I’m detached enough from the heat of the setting that I can sit back and read into every line of dialogue. I can see Swansea for what he is.
He’s a lot of things, really. He’s a jaded old man. He’s happiest when indulging his most self-destructive impulses. He’s the first to start throwing endless mouthwash back like Smirnoff Ice, his speech overflowing with twisted glee as he can finally go back to embracing his worst self. He claims, proud, resolute, that lying in a puddle of his own vomit, his vision spinning out of control, gives him more of a sense of joy than his wife and kids and respectable/doomed blue-collar job.
Yet it’s in that same conversational thread that he admits he dropped the bottle after thirteen years over an implied near-death experience. He speaks of his family as if they’ve never made him happy, but a dev Q&A has revealed his hobbies include going to his kids’ houses and fixing things for them, then making everybody a nice meal so they’re eating right.
But this isn’t the version of the character that we meet in Mouthwashing. Like the Swansea we see, I also am very much hanging by a thread. I work for exposure, mostly, and I think all my writing sucks within minutes of putting it out. I’ve learned that I’m actually pretty respected, though — people come to ask me for advice in “making it” when I haven’t even gotten past the point where I make my entire deal work. I think it’s nice when someone trusts my work, but sometimes I have no idea why that is. He’s the same. He pushes Daisuke away at every turn, unable to understand what it is about this miserable boozed-up wretch that makes this kid adore him so. It doesn’t end well. Nothing in Mouthwashing does.
Lead writer Johanna Kasurinen has said during a Guadalindie talk that Swansea is her mouthpiece, that writing him was to her like speaking through the text. She uses several of his quotes to talk about the grueling process of creating the story he’s from. I suppose it’s the undeniably human core at the heart of the character that moved me to, within two weeks of beating the game, designing my cosplay of him in a flash.
