#mouthwashing mentioned no way

[dykedvonte]

Curly's little blurb on his steam trading card just keeps reminding me he is a much more miserable person than people realize.

We don't get a lot of his thoughts, inner confliction that aren't bogged down by what Jimmy says or does. Even in the The Last One and Then Another, his dialogue is reflective, not the Curly before the crash but the result of everything. Parts of the him he was are there of course, but also disfigured and warped beyond recognition just like he is physically.

Curly really doesn't think much of himself and desires. He clearly chases fleeting moments of happiness. He doesn't really have prospects for himself, assumes in a similar way to Swansea, that if it should make it happy then he is happy. Though, he hasn't reached the point Swansea did to admit it doesn't. He neither sees the glass half full or empty, it's just water, something he needs and he'll take it from any perspective.

He wasn't running from anything but he's never really been going towards something either. He's listless. I've been using the term complacent to describe how he feels about his life and the closest people (really just Jimmy) in it, but now that word feels too neutral, too nice. Happier than Curly really was. There isn't just one word for it, he's unfulfilled, uncertain, uninspired. There are no active problems he faces and that's the issue, why should he be upset?

I believe he really is a person who doesn't know who he is or wants to be. He follows a structure. I don't think he's suicidal, but he clearly doesn't think about what makes him happy. He's numb. I suppose that is a better word than complacent, used to the feeling even if he hates it. It doesn't hurt so why stop it?

[blissfulrain12]

Jimmy's apology to Curly is bullshit. At least it is to me. First the only thing Jimmy is apologizing for is taking the Captain position from Curly. Nothing else. Because it's just Jimmy handing responsibility over to Curly again, you know scapegoating him. This is why he doesn't apologize to Daisuke or Swansea despite clearly feeling bad about them. This is why he doesn't even think of Anya.

Jimmy's not actually sorry for hurting Curly. There's no "Sorry I beat you and force fed you meds" or "Sorry I verbally abused you in front of the entire crew" or even "Sorry I ate your leg". Instead we get "You were right being Captain is hard, you be Captain again cause you're better than me. Also let me pretend to save you so I feel like a hero". Yeah Jimmy's only sorry he got himself into more trouble than he could handle even if he feels bad about how some of the crew ended up.

[swanocean-mouthwashing]

Less is more definitely works for this game. I think realistic visuals might not have had the same effect as this lowpoly style does.

The feeding sections with Curly also are so unsettling thanks to the audio alone. Like we could have some sort of cutscene but instead we're left to sit in the temporary dark as we hear Curly cry and choke and moan and your mind has to fill in the gaps.

The implied SA is also better off not being shown in detail or at all. A lot of media falls into the category of adding long scenes that are too often shot in a 'sexy' still male gazey way instead of showing the assault for what it is: terrifying. Mouthwashing could've had some cutscene but luckily it didn't. It didn't have to be shown for the gamers/viewers to feel nauseous about the implications.

[fox-guardian]

what is your opinion on people censoring jimmy’s name? i don’t like it personally because it erases blame. in real life the main goal is for people to know the names of r@pists so they can be aware and the victims always want people to know who hurt them so someone can take the blame for actions. i feel that when people censor jimmy’s name, it erases any blame for his actions. “i hate japist so much for what he did to anya!” okay but what’s his name? who hurt anya? who is to blame for his actions? by censoring his name, it takes the blame off of jimmy.

I get that perspective, but idk if it erases blame in this context? We all know who it's supposed to refer to (especially since all the nicknames start with j, so you can't confuse it with another character). It hits different for a Character in a Story like this vs an actual person who Could do harm to real people. I think that's a fair enough take to have tho, I can see why that'd bother you.

Regardless, that's not to say I don't Also find it a little annoying for my own reasons. Especially when people do it in serious conversations or pick especially tasteless names to call him. Like using a play on actual predators names. Who Have hurt real people. Like it's such a funny joke.

My biggest beef with it is that it often feels. Performative? I guess? Like "HEY LOOK HOW MUCH I HATE JIMMY I won't even say his NAME" yknow? It Feels sometimes like some (not all) people who do this don't want to engage with him as a character, which is not good because we Should be engaging with him. Talking about him and what he did, how it's not dissimilar to things in real life. The greatest horror of mouthwashing is that Jimmys do exist and if we refuse to look at even a fictional version of that type of guy, it'll be easier to miss it when people like him do harm irl.

Again, I don't think everyone who does the nicknames/censoring thing are like this or whatever, but sometimes it does just. Rub me the wrong way. Gets old.

[dreildream]

"Awesome, super cool, and like, totally awesome. Like really awesome."

[thebestusernamepossible]

I’m mostly staying off the Mouthwashing fandom bc I personally don’t want to put myself through whatever discourse is ever going on there. But know I love Anya and Mouthwashing is one of the best games I’ve played that had an SA survivor AND was respectful about it!! The abuse Anya suffered is never portrayed as a spectical for the audience to leer at. They use the art of implication VERY well, and in the end Anya gets to go out dignified. She’s not just Jimmy’s tradgic victim, she’s her own character who makes her own decisions. Jimmy doesn’t get to kill her, she expresses her own agency to do so. She’s also the one who kept the gun away from him for so long. Also she’s SO fucking strong, she’s so cool. Anya I love you.

Also the game’s overarching (but subtle) commentary on rape culture, enabling, and how capitalism almost makes a set dressing for it is peak.

[vendettapandav]

“Curly deserved better” “curly deserved so much more” “curly didn’t deserve what happened to him”

No no no no that’s the POINT. Curly is just as bad as Jimmy. He let so many of the giant red flags that tumbled out of Jimmy’s mouth slide. He was told multiple times about the abuse Jimmy was inflicting on Anya. He ignored Anya even when she pushed so far as to hide the gun on the ship bc she genuinely feared what Jimmy would do to her. Curly heard it all- saw it all- and he chose to do nothing. He had every opportunity to intervene before the crash but he didn’t. He chose not to. He blathered on and on about responsibility, about his willingness to do anything for his crew, but when they needed him most he did nothing. He just stood there and watched and let it happen.

And now he can’t do anything. He has lost the ability to make that choice. He physically can’t intervene now. His chance to change things and take responsibility has passed him by. Now, he has to just sit there and watch how the mask formed from all those red flags he so willfully ignored peels away and reveals the monster that was always there beside him. Now, he has to just sit there and watch as one by one, Jimmy manipulates and drives each and every one of the people that he swore up and down he would protect to the very edge, and kills them. Now, he just has to sit there and watch as Jimmy justifies each of his actions by blaming everyone else for the situation he put them in- the situation that Curly allowed him to put them in. He has to sit there and watch as Jimmy does everything in his power to create a palatable, sanitized narrative of what happened all so he can cover up what he was doing.

And Curly chose to stand there passively and allowed all of it until he physically didn’t have a choice anymore.

And in the end, Curly is the only one left to tell the story. The story of how it was all his responsibility, how he was supposed to do anything for his crew. And now, it’s all his fault because he couldn’t do just one thing. He has to live with that fact for the rest of his life. He has to live with the fact that his willful ignorance, his choice not to act, cost four people their lives. He will live with those physical and mental scars forever. But even worse, he has to live knowing that that’s the truth. And that in some cruel, twisted way, Jimmy was right.

The truth doesn’t really get rid of that awful taste in your mouth though, does it?

[noven-warsh]

I know this concept is small but I find it interesting when characters who end up raping other characters are shown to not understand boundaries and consent on a general level, like, at all

Like, two characters I can think off the top of my head currently are Yoru from Chainsaw Man and Jimmy from Mouthwashing. We see lots of instances of Yoru dulling down consent- two of them being how she possesses Asa's body and threatens her to make weapons and go to war with her otherwise she'll kill the rest of her human brain, and her justifying the objectification of her own children by saying that they're her "property" and therefore she's the one consenting about their fates. Jimmy also shows disregard for consent with how he forces the painkillers down Curly's throat (especially considering Anya's views of giving him the pills) and beats him to shut him up, and how he comes up with the plan to drug Swansea so that he can freely coerce Daisuke into crawling into the vents Swansea warned him about.

It adds another layer of depth to their character and the heinous actions they do/are revealed to have done later in the story, and asks the viewers the question of "If these characters show a blatant disregard for other people's consent and boundaries, what's stopping them from forcing themselves on other people?"

[raykat]

the terrifying ordeal of being the only woman on a shipwrecked freighter

[take-care-of-it]

I think one of the reasons people get so heated when it comes to Curly’s character ie his “goodness” does tie into a lot of people’s own personal experiences. I’ve seen victims that hate curly, I’ve seen victims that love curly. And a lot of their opinion came down to how they were processing (very traumatizing!) stuff that happened to them irl. If they projected him onto themselves or projected him onto someone in their life.

I just wish people understood that’s where a lot of the emotion is coming from, both from themselves and from the “wider debate.” It’s a lot of abuse survivors calling each other abuse apologists because of what they personally get out of these characters, of it feeling like a personal attack. (But hell. A non insignificant amount of the time, it is a personal attack :/)

[eveningrainstorm]

Listen. Swansea is great; he's a well-written character and I like him a lot. But it's weird to me how much fan content I see about him that seems to make him out to be a lot nicer than he's actually shown to be in the game, and nowhere is this more obvious than in how people depict his relationship with Anya.

I've seen other people address the whole "If Anya had told Swansea what happened he'd have killed Jimmy" thing (she did. he didn't.) but there's a larger issue where people act like Swansea cared a lot more about Anya and was a lot closer with her than is actually the case in canon. And sure, the game leaves a lot of room for differing interpretations of things and imaginings of what could have happened offscreen, but I've seen so many people act like this idea of Swansea and Anya being close is something actually depicted in canon which. It very much is not.

Like okay. Let's talk about this. What does the game itself actually show us about Anya and Swansea's relationship?

Well, we don't see much of their dynamic before the crash aside from them just being coworkers with some level of familiarity with each other. They do stand together at the birthday party, and Anya playfully tells Curly that “Swansea really likes that cake. Don’t tell anyone,” to which Swansea only "hmph"s in response. From this we can gather that the two of them are friendly enough that Anya feels comfortable teasing him. Even so, she certainly isn't an exception to his characteristic harshness and brutal honesty — take an interaction later in the same scene, where a distressed Anya says she has no savings and asks if Pony Express can really fire them like this and Swansea, not cruelly but certainly bluntly, tells her that Pony Express going under has been a long time coming.

Of more importance, perhaps, is the game's first "2 months after the crash" segment, where we are first introduced to both of them — and where the game makes it quite apparent just how little Swansea respects Anya. The very first scene, in fact, features Swansea interrupting Anya and mocking her when she tries to explain why opening the cargo hold is a good idea. Later, when talking to Jimmy, Swansea calls Anya "our so-called nurse" and says that "it's in one ear and out the other" when talking about how she nearly got injured on the broken vent. And if you get the code scanner before talking to her Swansea will tell you to get her before opening the cargo hold but specifically with the justification that "even she couldn't make the situation worse with her presence." None of this is really uncharacteristic of Swansea, given he talks about Daisuke in much the same way, but it's not something that can just be swept under the rug — and yet, seemingly, everyone does. I hardly ever see anyone even mention Swansea insulting her here.

Of course, none of these scenes are where the idea that Swansea and Anya are particularly close comes from. No, that idea comes from a single scene: "3 months after", when Jimmy finds the two of them talking in the cockpit at night. We only see the end of this conversation, where Anya, apparently crying, is saying “No. I understand completely. If that’s how it has to be—”

The game never reveals exactly what the two of them were talking about; the two main theories I've seen are that Swansea was telling her that he was saving the cryopod for Daisuke or that she had told Swansea that Jimmy assaulted her and Swansea was saying she'd just have to put up with being around him for the time being. Personally, I think the latter is much more likely, but either way, the end result is the same: regardless of how much Swansea cares about Anya, her well-being is not his first priority.

We never see any follow-up on this conversation; if Anya and Swansea meet up behind Jimmy's back at any other point, we don't see it or hear it referenced. "4 months after" offers no interaction between the two of them at all, with Swansea busy dancing drunkenly while Anya, on the other side of the lounge, tells Jimmy about the extra medicine cabinet. "5 months after", Anya commits suicide in Medical while Swansea sits drunk and oblivious in front of Utility. The only reference to Anya and Swansea's conversation — and the closest we get to a confirmation of what it was about — comes after Daisuke's death, when Jimmy uses "telling Anya who knows what" as a sign of shady behavior from Swansea, and Swansea agrees that he did talk to Anya, "but it was her telling me all sorts of things instead, wasn't it?", the implication being that she told Swansea about Jimmy raping her.

This line is interesting. Swansea is referencing what Jimmy did to Anya here, and implicitly condemning him for it, and yet... well, Anya's already dead. Swansea isn't doing anything for her, really; he doesn't seem particularly emotional or angry about it, either. All it really is, when it comes down to it, is a spiteful jab at Jimmy — just Swansea, still angry over Daisuke's death, trying to get under Jimmy's skin.

We never see Swansea react to Anya's death. This isn't surprising; we aren't shown what happened when Daisuke got the door to Medical open, and afterwards Swansea is understandably preoccupied with Daisuke's fatal injuries. The first thing Swansea says about Anya after her death is the line about her telling him things. And, well... here's the problem.

That line? Is also the last thing Swansea says about Anya.

He never mentions her again. That one line, the one that doesn't even mention her death, the one that seems more about getting at Jimmy than mourning her — that's the last we hear of her from Swansea. And maybe he does care, maybe her death is just as much a catalyst for him trying to kill Jimmy as Daisuke's is. But he never says anything about her. He doesn't mention her in his death scene. Sure, that last portion of the game is largely filtered through Jimmy's mind, his disregard for Anya keeping her out of focus, but Swansea's death — a moment of sharp, simple clarity in which Swansea says all the things Jimmy doesn't want to hear — doesn't have that excuse. Swansea doesn't say a thing about her, because in the end, he's not focused on her either.

So that's what we have. They don't seem to be that close, before or after the crash, though they theoretically could be. Anya telling him specifically about what Jimmy did could be considered a notable show of trust, but then again she could have just wanted to tell someone and considered him her best option, and in any case if she was hoping for him to do anything about it, he didn't. And despite a large portion of the fandom believing it to be the case, there isn't actually anything indicating that he told Anya about the cryo pod — if anything, his assertion that it was Anya who told him things rather than the other way around is evidence against it. Technically, anything's possible — Swansea could have comforted Anya when she told him about Jimmy, he could have offered her the cryo pod, he could have grieved her just as much as Daisuke — but looking at what the game itself presents, the picture it paints is far different from the one typically seen in the fandom.

We don't know what's going on in Swansea's head. We don't know what happens in the time between the moments the game shows us. But what the game does show us is this: Swansea repeatedly is disrespectful and rude to or about Anya; Swansea doesn't do anything after she tells him what Jimmy did to her; Swansea doesn't have any real reaction to Anya's death. Does he care about her? Probably. I'd like to believe so. But she's not the one he decides to kill Jimmy over, she's not the one he has regrets for in his dying moments, she's not the one he's saving the cryo pod for.

Maybe Swansea cares about Anya, but she's not his first priority. And isn't that sort of the point? This is what the game has been showing us the whole time: Anya is no one's first priority, except her own.

[dykedvonte]

Curly not immediately punishing Jimmy for assaulting Anya is something I don’t think a lot of people are viewing in the complex context for Curly as the superior to both of them and closest confidante they had.

Like I am in no way saying he didn’t under react or fail Anya by not being harsh or direct with Jimmy but it really is the case that he really couldn’t. Imagine being stuck in such a confined space with very little areas to genuinely hold someone if they commit a crime. It’s not like this was an event that occurred before they departed or that they have easy communication with The Pony Express to ask for how to proceed when something like this arises. Not to mention, Jimmy’s relative power in relation to Anya as the co-pilot and second in command, he has the knowledge and access to do something to her had Curly directly punished him in this setting.

They were also Curly’s friends. It’s not just the case of him mediating something between his subordinates but people he is personally invested in don’t want to see spiral further in Anya’s case while also not wanting believe his friend go that bad in Jimmy’s actions. They were both suicidal and Curly putting Jimmy’s stability first is both out of bias but also the fact he’s aware at some level Jimmy is a danger to himself and others if not constantly placated. Combined with the fact he was in denial or just not piecing together what Anya said it’s hard to say what he buying time for and what he had treat as urgent. This isn’t even saying he doesn’t care about Anya but he’s not going jump to the worst conclusions about his friends even if part of him acknowledges the evidence saying so. It’s a complicated thing but he’s still human and needed to process it on top of trying to keep a ship that already took on a lot of water from further sinking, metaphorically.

I just personally think that while Curly failed Anya, it was a scenario where there wasn’t much he could do to the best thing by her safely and like Jimmy, we are underestimating what a good leader would do in a very fragile and tense situation like he was in. By the time he may have been ready and had a plan, things were much too late.

[moot-ramsey]

I just think he's neat!

[paranormalglass]

i need to yap about mouthwashing and how the community received it bceause its so odd to me

mention of rape under the cut very disorganised cause its just me dumping my thoughts

mouthwashing is a very confronting game where you play for most parts in the perspective of a rapist and if not him then the man who excused and enabled his actions

its very confronting in showing how everyone around anya fails her and how her rape is covered up despite almost the entre tulpar crew being aware of what happened. when anya was talking to curly he said hed talk to jimmy hed figure it out hes excusing jimmys actions even if hes well intentioned he is allowing jimmys assault fall under the radar

when anya and curly are talking before the crash and anya mentions the dead pixel on the screen that curly cant see saying 'itll drive [him] crazy thinking about it' but then almost immediately seems to forget it reads to me as a metaphor for how anya and the abuse she faced was treated. he said he cared and that he would do something about it only to really push it down and move on from it

anyas suicide is the culmination of all the actions of the men around her how they failed her and its a very important part of the game jimmy himself never takes responsibility or accountability for his actions as is a major part of the later game and hes seen to be aggressive to anya throughout the entire game swansea knew yet he never intervened while he may not have been around anya and jimmy he still knew what jimmy did and the fact he did nothing is so heartbreaking and eye opening

the fact that people will take a game like this and then go ignore all the themes and messages to make ship art and content of curly and jimmy makes me so upset. yeah theres always gonna be shippers but theres a time and a place and more often i see peopel upset that it would be a toxic relationship between the two which is why they shouldnt be shipped

theres a time and place for shipping and in mouthwashing i feel like its incredibly obvious that you shouldnt be to each their own or whatever but its so frustrating to me and absolutely soul crushing that anyas struggle and a major point of the plot if not most of it is ignored for the sake of shipping. i can undersatnd that curly and jimmy have a really interesting dynamic and place within the story as foils but theres a time and place

i can relate to anya and i see myself in her which may cause part of my upset and i understand and know i cant control what people do in spaces but its so bizarre to me that people will see a game like mouthwashing about how a woman was failed by the institutions and men around her and make it about shippinh

ive seen a lot of art of curly and anya or even anya and jimmy being shipped which is. a whole other thing. how do you msis the plot that bad genuinely. i feel like you have to play the game with your eyes closed to do that.

tldr i dont understand how a game about the impact of a rape and its cover up is entirely overlooked and ignored to make ship content

[ovium-sheep]

Please, can people stop giving Curly excuses for doing nothing?

Even if they weren’t in space, even if their pay wouldn’t get docked, even if the cryopods were a concrete, solid option I doubt he would have done

ANYTHING.

It’s made pretty clear he cared more about HIS reputation and Jugular’s reputation than Anya’s safety. There were plenty examples of this, such as:

His odd disposition to Anya’s situation. Treating her rape as something that can be fixed and that is a “we” problem.

His phrasing, and the mentions of how things don’t “need” to be reported and shit.

His disregard for Anya after she admitted time and time again and when she finally told him she was pregnant, again he brushed her off and told her “I know him.”

Once again, his disregard for Anya right before the crash. Instead of comforting the literal RAPE VICTIM he went to the aid OF THE ABUSER.

And finally, the fact he put Jantwon on board to help him clean up his act in the very first place.

Curly knew what Japarty was capable of, yet he still put he and his crew in danger because he wanted to clear up Junkyard’s reputation.

Now I’m certain Curly had experienced J-diddy’s behavior for long enough to see it as almost “normal,” and I’m sure he had been a victim of Jacuzzi’s abuse long before ever entering the Tulpar (albeit probably not physical.)

But none of that excuses his mentality of “I must help him, NO MATTER WHAT.”

He seems to think he’s indebted to the dirtbag, and I understand that, but he doesn’t learn until it’s far too late.

All in all, Curly wouldn’t have done anything even if the circumstances were right.

Stop giving him excuses.

[catfishofoldin99colours]

(tw gore, head trauma, injury mention) thinking about daisuke's death and how Swansea did not hold back in letting that axe fall into his skull and how lots of fanart depicts Daisuke with a long cut along his face which isn't incorrect but thinking about the force of that swing and the weight of that acts and how pendulums are most powerful at the middle of their swing and gravity and so on

His fucking skull would have caved in and crushed his brain, genuinely killing him instantly

It'd be so gross to draw and even more awful to find references off but it would be accurate! And all the more heartbreaking, he literally got destroyed