#will go bother swansea or anya for pets

[themouthwashes]

Daisuke as a werewolf maybe ? 🥺 (or mayhaps playing w/ werewolf anya,,)

His head is now totally empty

[oneslimybastard]

mouthwashing spoilers ig bewaaare it's so fascinating just How Much people hate Jimmy Mouthwashing, despite that when it comes to Evil Deeds he actually lags behind a lot of other horror characters.

He's not a serial killer. He's not even really a killer (the only person he hands-on murders is Swansea in implied self defense). He's bitter, entitled, emotionally immature, impulsive, misogynistic, a rapist and enabled by Terminal Nice Guy Curly. Aka, a guy you've worked with, or a pissy uncle that keeps getting invited to christmas out of enforced politeness, your boyfriend's friend who keeps making you uncomfortable and you keep being told that he's a "good guy" deep down. A scumbag of which there are a dime a dozen of.

Any readings that he was a machivallian evil mastermind to me feels like huffing cope. Because the entire game is just Jimmy fuckign, floudering, as his actions suddenly have a lot of consequences that he wasn't emotionally equipped for. He thinks he can fix things, and that it's not really his fault, sure he assaulted Anya but she wasn't supposed to get pregnant from it, sure he crashed the ship in a temper tantrum but he didn't think Curly would get meatified from it. He sends Daisuke into the hutch because he's too much of a coward to do it himself, but he wasn't supposed to get injured from it. Yeah he's treated Anya like shit but she wasn't supposed to kill herself. Swansea comes after him with an axe — that wasn't supposed to happen either. And at the very end, Jimmy martyrs himself to "save" Curly (how saved he gets from being turned into a cryofrozen treat is debatable but I like to think it does ensure his survival, for the themes), so he can have some fucking solace that he managed to set things right before he kills himself — when in actuality all he did was ensure that he will run from taking responsibility for the rest of time.

After all, no one can hold you accountable if you're dead.

Jimmy isn't evil, you the player would be much more comfortable with his character if he WAS evil. He's just pathetic, making excuses, and emotionally lashing out, lashing out over the trauma he inflicted on someone else having consequences for him he sees no obvious escape from for once. Curly can't nepo him outa this one, lads. And all it takes is a few button presses to doom the entire ship.

Then he doesn't even have the guts to own it. He doesn't have the guts to own what a shitty person he is, called out directly in-text by Swansea who like we stan Swansea but I would not be surprised if his list of crimes (minus ship-crashing) looked exactly like Jimmy's, sexual assault included.

And that's the whole point of Mouthwashing innit. The worst guys you know will be some dick who refuses to own up to his own scumbaggery because he can't stand to look himself in the mirror if he does, and the people who cover for him. Evil doesn't exist (the contexts for where I think it does is a different and politically loaded conversation), usually it's just Some Fucking Guy who thought he was too good for therapy and magikarp splashed his path of carnage through other people's lives because of it.

Jimmy could have set things right, but that meant grappling with what a shitbag he is and the damage he caused Anya, and for certain people embittered by their own mediocrity, Armageddon is just the much more glamorous option.

And when he's forced to pick up the pieces and take responsibility, he breaks. Despite how much we hate it, it's very easy in this world to become a Jimmy, to fuck up and hurt people and then just go nuh-uh-nuh-uh until we've convinced ourselves we really did nothing wrong; to brainwash ourselves into thinking running away from accountability is the noble action. Even easier to become a Curly, with a pet Jimmy scrambling around that you can't be fucked to hold accountable because that's like, so messy, and a bother, it's fine, he's just a little grouchy you guys. Yes yes Anya I hear your concerns but like... I dunno, this puts me in a really complicated situation, you understand?

People know this instinctively, and that's why they feel like they have to parade Jimmy around like the Worst Guy Ever, to wash their hands of him, since that's more soothing than thinking about how much of a Boring Regular Guy he actually is. A Boring Regular Guy you've got in your life right now who kind of puts you off but nobody is actively dealing with. You included.

That's probably a large part of why this game haunts people, and why Jimmy just gets under their skin so bad to call him like the most irredeemable guy ever. In a genre he shares with like the Mad Father himself and Sachiko the torture ghost from Corpse Party, or the lady from the Amnesia DLC, etc. etc. (Astarion BG3 is also Objectively a shittier guy than Jimmy Mouthwashing, which isn't a fair comparison because different genres with different stakes, but it is a funny one.)

also he's in yaoi with curly soooooorry it's in the text as he cradles that meated up bod and stares straight into curly's bulging eyeball and forcefeeds him pills. and then his own leg. his love language is just complicated ok dont judge.