#And while being the captain doesn't mean Curly can't be abused the abuse will happen and affect him differently bc of the power dynamics

[trans-leek-cookie]

mouthwashing is one of those games that having a 80% male cast very obviously Is Saying Something, with the one woman's role being traditional in that she is the Nurse, therefore Caretaker, and is given the burden of """supporting""" (BS bc capitalist hellscape company but also shed probably get blamed anyways) everyone else's mental health without ever getting even that fucking bullshit excuse for "mental health support" and is fucking Assaulted with no recourse (in some ways due to the nature of It's A Spaceship but also it was clearly Not Handled Well By The Captain) and y'know. Due to her role as caretaker she is given responsibility over the consequences of A DIFFERENT PERSON'S ACTIONS (THE ACTIONS HAPPENING EBCAUSE HE COULDNT DEAL WITH THE CONSEQUENCES OF WHAT HE DID TO HER)

And then I have to see a million posts about Toxic Yaoi focusing on how the guy who hurt her hurt the guy who wasn't helping (like you can argue about his intent and why he didn't take certain actions and that's not wrong but the point for this post is that he did not fucking keep her safe which is in fact His Job and also just Basic Decency) and while yeah he did get hurt (INCREDIBLY HURT) that was as a consequence of HIS FRIEND TRYING TO ESCAPE THE CONSEQUENCES OF HURTING ANYA LIKE. LITERALLY THE WHOLE PLOT OF THE GAME HAPPENS BECAUSE HE HURT ANYA AND THEN REFUSED TO FACE THE CONSEQUENCES. OH MY GOD

[fruit-sy]

(MOUTHWASHING SPOILERS) Just finished Mouthwashing and I feel such deep-rooted grief for Anya and Curly

God, Anya ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT DESERVE ANY OF THE BULLSHIT JIMMY DID AND (INADVERTANTLY) CURLY LET HAPPEN TO HER. People analyzed that Anya normally isn't a meek or timid person. She can be anxious, but she can also be cheerful and competitive too with Daisuke from the dialogue about game night.

Hell, even in Curly's POV, even through the lay off news shaking her, she still seems at ease and talkative with him.

But from Jimmy's POV, she's either trying to placate him by pumping up his ego or is terrified of him.

And god, the situation she's stuck in is fucking terrifying. Doesn't help that the only other authoritative figure in the ship, Curly, doesn't do shit about her abuser, no matter how much she begs him to help.

I don't blame her for being terrified of trying to confide in Swansea or Daisuke. If Curly won't do shit, then what are the chances they would understand?

Being surrounded by so many people, but none of them can help you is a suffocating feeling. I can't imagine how much she was dying to scream out for help, only to feel like her pain is downplayed and even swept aside as she's forced to be compliant and passive in this situation. Not looking to rock the boat lest she suffers more under Jimmy's abuse.

The way Jimmy sees her (and how the majority of the game frames her character, as a result), is so fucking vile. I was made aware by people that Jimmy had guilt sequences for the rest of the men, while not for Anya. All she's represented as is a terrifying, deformed mass that his mind associates with the fucking cartoon horse mascot that he made sexual jokes about to her. He doesn't feel guilty about what he did to Anya.

He doesn't even think to acknowledge her as more of an object. He only sees the horror in the baby, the mass of meat and limbs. Not what he did to her.

Moving on to Curly, I feel such sadness and frustration towards him. I feel angry that he inadvertently silenced Anya's cries for help.

Curly is an unfortunately believable, flawed character that reflects how people and their preconceived biases can inadvertently silence victims of abuse. It's the mindset of "Oh, my best friend hasn't done anything terrible to me, so he can't be all that bad!"

Also, I think it's from the flawed way Curly thinks. He wants to do good by everyone yet he can't bring himself to be confrontational with Jimmy when he does something fucked up. The dead pixel analogy tells us so much, he's trying so hard to ignore the extremely problematic behavior of his friend (the dead pixel) in favor of keeping the status quo/"peace" of the entire ship (looking at the whole picture).

Also, I think there's something similar that can be extracted from his talk with Jimmy in the cockpit. Even though I think Jimmy did insert a little bit of his words into Curly's mouth, the main takeaway is that Curly is someone who is uncomfortable with the idea of "starting something new if he's bad at it.". Meaning, it feels easy staying in the status quo, even if he feels discontent with it.

He's trying to accomodate for everyone, in a way. He keeps saying he'll fix this, he'll fix the situation, but he still keeps the problem (Jimmy). He doesn't dare to tear down the status quo he has with him.

That's why, I feel so much conflicting sadness after the crash.

In a way, Curly gets to be in Anya's shoes. His authority, his reputation, his ability to look away, to turn away from Jimmy's abuse, is all gone.

Because Jimmy is a piece of shit and a COWARD, he refuses to fess up and takes Curly's authority as a captain.

The crew thinks Curly was the one who crashed the ship. With no lips to speak with, he can only stew in their discontentment and confusion towards him. His reputation, how people perceive him is also out of his control, being disfigured and injured so terribly made people dehumanize him.

Jimmy is so fucking vile again. He keeps acting like giving Curly his medication is the biggest chore in the world and he does it not very gently, even hitting Curly to vent out his own frustrations. It's like Jimmy forgets that Curly's his own fucking friend who shielded him for his disgusting behavior.

I feel like I want to weep when I look at Curly. My heart aches when I hear him writhing in the bed, when he's sobbing, heaving, screaming in pain, when even breathing feels so hard that it comes out in labored breaths. Even if what he did was terrible, he doesn't deserve any of that shit that happened to him.

To be kept just barely alive and stewing in his own blood and robbed of autonomy.

He can scream and make noises, but no one can understand him. Jimmy can spit out the most vile shit and one sided conversations, and Curly can't admonish him for how awful he is. In the days after the crash, Anya can beg him for answers. Asking "Why? Why did you do it?", but he is robbed of his tongue, unable to answer her desperate pleas. He can see Anya breaking down, clawing the gun case and begging him for the code, but he can't grant her that request even if he wanted to. He can watch helplessly as Anya passes away next to him, and Daisuke's screams as he drags his bloodied body out of the vent to unlock medical.

He can only laugh as Jimmy unlocks the gun. Perhaps wallowing in regret as he let the friend he so desperately tried to shield torture everyone. Perhaps at that moment he truly saw the monster that Anya begged him to save her from.

He is forced to watch, eyes unblinking, as he is at the mercy of a cruel and delusional monster.

[grimalkinmessor]

hi hello, you are COOKING with that fucked up mw fix it au. Curly will 100% keep it to himself because

(1) he’s gonna think his situation will just burden the crew if he told them and besides, “he’s the captain, he needs to solve it himself.”

(2) he’s male - a healthy one at that considering he’s weightlifting - and people are less likely to believe he’s been sexually abused.

(3) jimmy’s a close friend. curly has done mental gymnastics to excuse him before, he’d probably do it even when he’s the subject of his abuse. he’ll probably adapt the “well at least it’s me he’s hurting and not someone else” mentality

that’s so messed up. i want to see it in a multichapter fic so bad

YEEEEAAAHH YOU GET IT!! >:D

I'm here to be evil and explore all the evil options ✨ That's the game, yes! Curly and Anya both handle terrible trauma in different ways, and the consequences of each are horrible in very different fonts :) For Anya, her consequences are far-reaching, and she keeps reaching out to people, trying to tell them what happened to her so maybe someone will finally DO something about it, but everyone only ever gives her pity, not solutions. Swansea even says something along the lines of "Sorry that happened to you but it's really not the time for that right now" to her during their convo :') As a result, Jimmy finds out about her pregnancy, crashes the ship, multilates Curly, strands them for several months before killing them all one by one, either through mental or physical means, until only Curly is left. And even then. Curly is the only one who comes out of Jimmy's spiral alive.

For Curly though, it'd be the opposite. Jimmy isn't running from his problem; he's chosen fight instead of flight here. Curly's consequences are deeper, more personalized, because while nobody dies, his own rationalization of "Jimmy's in a bad place, Jimmy's my friend, Jimmy's not a bad guy, I'm a grown man, I can handle this, this ain't shit" *CUE THE NUMEROUS WORRYING HALLUCINATIONS* Jimmy honing in on him from the start means that Jimmy is less careful about being subtle but it also doesn't matter. Because no one would ever suspect that their Strong Captain is being abused by his first mate—his best friend. And even if they did, it wouldn't invoke pity—but it wouldn't invoke solutions either. Because in this case, Curly is expected to TÅKË RÊSPØÑSÏBÎLITY, because he's a man. If you're being abused, and you're a man, then just stop being abused ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯ You can just hit him, can't you? You can just use violence to show him that he shouldn't mess with you, right? Man up! It can't be that bad! Your bones are unbroken and you're not bleeding out so you must be fine!

(Curly internalizes this before anyone can even say it btw. Jimmy's not the only one dealing with toxic masculinity.)

Plus, since Jimmy actually, you know, likes Curly, it doesn't,,,,always hurt. In fact, it very rarely hurts in a way that you can physically see. He's so so delusional about this because while he's drowning in the shame of very viscerally, bodily enjoying what Jimmy does to him, it's also how he convinces himself that maybe he wants this too. Maybe he asked for this, even though he said no. This adds on a whole slew of embarrassment to go with that heaping pile of self-blame and shame ✨

Yet another reason that Curly is able to delusionally convince himself that what's happening to him is not abuse and that Jimmy is in fact still not a bad person and not hurting him. Anya notices that SOMETHING is wrong (just like Curly notices that something is wrong with Anya) but isn't sure what it is, and though she prods more than Curly would (did) when Curly won't talk to her and just keeps deflecting and acting like he's totally fine, there's not much she can do. She's not exactly the most respected member of the crew, after all -_-

Curly offering—"offering"—to get an apartment together with Jimmy after they land is seen as a natural segue, given that they've always been close and Jimmy's been publicly guilting the hell out of Curly about them all getting fired and how HE, SPECIFICALLY has nothing to go back to. Hence a whole new level hell :) Curly is a housewife from the fucking fifties but he works forty-two hours a week and no one gives a shit when he rolls up with bruises around his neck. Gaslighting and isolation galore ✨

And it's interesting here, that while if Anya gets hurt, everyone but Curly falls, but if Curly is the one that takes the bullet (Jimmy), everyone but Curly gets a happy ending :)

Anya could've helped him, but Curly didn't want her help.

Anya could've gotten help from him, but Curly didn't want to help.

Funny, how things work out in a mirror, huh? 💖