MOUTHWASHING

28/7/25

a study in empathy

TW: THEMES OF SA, VIOLENCE AND MISOGYNY

What is Mouthwashing?

SPOILERS THROUGHOUT

A non-linear first person horror game that finds us following the stories of five crew members stranded on a cargo spaceship (the Tulpar) after the Captain allegedly redirected the ship, causing a brutal crash that cuts off vital areas of the ship leaving supplies sparse and the crew on edge alongside the Captain being maimed, barely alive. 

It follows the story and effect of the crew members - Friendly and well-intentioned Captain Curly, standoff-ish co-pilot Jimmy, old recovering alcoholic Swansea, young and joyful intern Daisuke and failed nurse Anya. 

The game places you in the shoes of Captain Curly pre-crash, and co-pilot Jimmy post-crash, in which the stories being told to us by the unreliable narrator of Jimmy and the true events shown to us by Curly become clear, and the tensions caused by these stories lead ultimately to the demise of the crew - save for the maimed Captain Curly. 

I highly recommend playing or at least watching a play-through of the actual game so you understand what I am referring to in specifics - if not you can read a vague synopsis here. 

Jimmy

Our central character and perhaps the most unfortunately important to the story of Mouthwashing, Jimmy is possibly one of the best executed examples of an abuser I've personally seen in media. The thing with Jimmy is that he's more or less a universally hated character by the fandom - with nicknames and joking trigger warnings directed towards him in almost every piece of Mouthwashing discussion and fan media. 

But people are missing the point.

He is an exceptionally well written character. 

When we go over how he acts in the game he is shown in the initial pre-crash sequences to be grumpy, rude ...and most importantly jealous - Jimmy is constantly making remarks about how 'hard done by' and how he almost despises Curly for being praised as a 'great leader'. This is, for want of a better term, a demonstration of not only Jimmy's extreme ego-centric self-pity in almost a manipulative way - convincing himself and the viewer that he is the victim of the story, that the story follows the great tragedy of Jimmy. This is intentional. When - specifically this new breed of men, self-proclaimed 'incels' are becoming ever more popular in the modern era, falling into traps of toxic masculinity we see this same sort of behaviour. The same strain of entitlement to others (specifically women), the same strain of self-pity and the same strain of the abuse he ends up committing. Above and beyond this, even in viewers who maybe aren't as extreme as your abusive incel, he is meant to be relatable, especially to men. This is part of the horror of the game - this character is maybe your friend who isn't doing as well as others, maybe he's the guy on the game who'll make casual misogynistic jokes and talks about how depressed he is. He's not meant to be this big, ethereal concept of a villain like we see in so many other pieces of media. He's meant to be someone you might know - he's almost this embodiment of "my friend wouldn't rape, he's a good guy!", but given a sort of power in the context of the story to the point where it causes the suffering of the other crew members. 

When it becomes clear that Jimmy's assault on Anya is known and is resulting in a pregnancy, Jimmy panics. Not because of what he's done to Anya - but quite literally because it's proof of his crime, and others now know. He has suffered - he, Jimmy, the perpetual victim. And this even further shows us the violence in his character design. Jimmy, as a character, is so well written because your casual abusers, the guy who just makes a few jokes or made a "drunken mistake" (despite, just like Jimmy in his knowledge of the spiked drink, this almost never being the case)  and how they need the approval of others and how, just like in the repeated phrase throughout the game they cannot, no matter how much it's pushed on them, Take Responsibility. Because in the minds of these people and reinforced by those around them it's not their fault, or their crime. It's always someone else's - theres nothing for them to take responsibility for in their head. 

And when we find out Jimmy has crashed the ship and falsely claimed Captain Curly to have done it - throwing his one enabler, his one friend under the bus for the sake of his own ego? That is exactly the point. Egocentric, entitled and self-pitying people like Jimmy who have no insight on the consequences of their actions are constantly all around us. Because of the world we live in these individualistic (often men) people are so familiar and will always value themselves over others, even subconsciously.

The point of Jimmy's character that is so beautifully portrayed is that even though he, when written on paper, has so obviously all these giant flaws to his personality that make him this great villain - so many around us do. Peoples flaws and the way they behave often don't often manifest in these giant over-the-top ways, but instead in small moments and passing phrases in the way Jimmy does. Just this casual abuser whom we see all around us and barely even recognise it until it's far too late.

Curly

Captain Curly is of course the seeming "Good Guy" of this whole game, he is once again a brilliant example of a nuanced character that ultimately causes damage despite his best intentions. He's a real "nice guy" and a perfect example of a bystander, a neutral position and an even better demonstration of why there is no neutral in any situation. 

Once again, Curly is also a character who is severely watered down into either a "helpless baby" or a "cheerful nice guy", but in reality he's a fairly deep character who has multiple layers of good and bad. And while it's obvious that Curly always had good-intentions, those intentions always came with an intention of keeping the peace rather than doing what's right. 

In the pre-crash sections, we play as Curly who seems always willing to help, speaking kindly to everyone and is keen to get the job done. Curly is given a message early on, informing him that the crew, aside from Curly himself, has been laid off by the Tulpar's company the Pony Express. He is told to keep this message confidential but instead decides to tell the crew. Of course, this is well-intentioned. We see this side of Curly and while he is doing what should almost always be considered the right thing in being honest with the crew, he is also unwillingly increasing the tension amongst the crew and this becomes one of Jimmy's motivating factors in crashing the ship. Of course, I don't believe at all that Curly was responsible for this, could have foreseen Jimmy's actions, that he is to blame, or had to cater to Jimmy whatsoever, however in his responsibility as a leader he did actively prioritise the 'Good thing' over the best option. 

When it is revealed to Curly by Anya that she was sexually assaulted by Jimmy as a direct consequence of Curly not allowing anyone access to the revolver (Once again, well-intentioned, he didn't want anyone having free access to a firearm in that way, however disregarding Anya's concerns ended up in a horrible result) he reassures her over what she's had to go through, doing the 'good' thing, however he urges Anya to keep it to herself in order to prevent any form of discord amongst the crew. This is not the right thing to do. It goes often without saying that the case of what was done to Anya should almost certainly be given justice, and I completely understand the justification behind what Curly did as Anya's choice to tell Jimmy did ultimately cause the crash. Despite this, it has the opposite motivation to telling the crew about their dismissal - with the dismissal he wanted to do the good thing of being honest with the crew about their circumstances despite the problems this may cause but wanted the opposite with Anya in order to keep the peace with Jimmy - thus valuing his long-time friend over the victim of his abuse, taking a harm minimisation strategy, once again rather than doing what is right. 

Curly is always taking the most neutral "good" option, constantly choosing what is perceived to be the correct option while still wanting to maintain peace on both sides, even if there is an obvious black and white situation the likes of Jimmy and Anya. His insistence on neutrality in a way that is still perceived as kind ends up only causing more harm, and similarly, like Jimmy, is meant to be relatable. He's meant to be just a nice guy, but when something bad is truly happening he can't handle in the 'right' way, only the 'good' way. He's not at all a bad person but somehow he isn't a truly good person either. 

Anya

A small disclaimer on my analysis of Anya. As she, at least in my opinion really embodies the experience of 'girlhood' and what it's like being surrounded by men in a patriarchal world where you almost never come first, I do find her the most relatable character and thus I probably can't give her as much of an "objective" analysis as the other two characters have. Although this is likely another sign of awesome writing as, once again, she is a character that you are specifically meant to relate to and that's meant to be part of the horror of it.

The sole woman in the crew of the Tulpar, Anya is the 'nurse' for the ship despite having attempted multiple times to pass medical school and failing each time. Like Jimmy, and the other crew members she has not had a good run with life. Unlike Jimmy she doesn't make herself a constant victim. However - this may also be considered one of her flaws. Similarly to Curly she looks for the most peaceful option, as a matter of fact even after the assault by Jimmy she states that people aren't defined by their worst moments. But this makes her an actual victim - the only time she does an action that isn't strictly to the benefit of others is telling Jimmy about the resulting pregnancy from the assault. 

This, once again, is a great example of a character that summarises the female experience in a male dominated world - a simple fact is that many women in a patriarchal society such as ours are raised and conditioned to be far more considerate than many men are. This means that even if they are wronged, many women are conditioned to have to consider the effect on others if they do what would cause them justice or what should be done. The other great tragedy of Anya being the true victim of Mouthwashing is that she is not only a reflection of what women have to face in patriarchal societies (97% of women face sexual assault within their lifetime) but there never being a true resolution to Anya's story. Despite Anya facing such directed violence at the hands of Jimmy there is not much guilt within the perspective of Jimmy for Anya - a huge reflection on the societal treatment of women vs the treatment of men. Within the climax of the story we are in the shoes of Jimmy having mass hallucinations, one of which he 'justifies' his actions to the image of Curly, finally showing some remorse about his actions towards Curly, Daisuke and Swansea. However he never mentions Anya's (accidental???) suicide due to the pregnancy he forced on her, but in the most conventionally 'horror' aspects of the game we see visions of Polle (meant to represent either Anya, implied through dialogue that Jimmy is sexually attracted to horses, or Jimmy and Anya's unborn child as shown in the amalgamation of Polle's coming out of a seemingly vaginal flesh on the wall) speaking to Jimmy, asking him why he's still obsessed with Curly when Anya is the real victim, as Jimmy references Anya's "Our worst moments don't make us monsters." Anya is treated by both Curly and Jimmy as a second priority over which her suffering is less important, and all actions leading towards her suffering is second rate. 

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Empathy

Ultimately, despite all it's beautiful storytelling mechanics and complex characters the message of the game is quite simple - Monsters lurk in plain sight. However fandom debates are rampant and (trust me, don't read unless you want to be mad for the rest of the day) horrible takes by people who are threatened by the portrayal of Jimmy as the 'bad guy', as well as the sexualisation of Anya (once again mainly disgusting and entitled men the likes of Jimmy), overlooking of Jimmy's writing, focus on other characters such as Daisuke and the ableist babying of Curly all lead to a realisation of the loss of media literacy in the internet age and the de-sensitisation to vile and disgusting acts such as sexual assault, all leading to a severe lack of empathy. I'm in no way against people having fun in a fandom but debates over a simple piece of media and peoples reduced ability to spot simple storytelling techniques such as unreliable narrators are becoming increasingly concerning, and with the rise in male violence and outward radicalisation of patriarchal values these sorts of "missing the point" in poignant media like this is worrying, as it makes us all more susceptible to the normalisation of violence and the lack of critical thinking towards things even as extreme as propaganda. 

If you have read the entire rant I randomly decided to create today, thank you. Of course, I totally understand skimming a massive rant like this it's stupid long. I would like to say that these of course are just my opinions on mouthwashing as a game and how I believe it portrays these sorts of concepts. I feel that while this is quite in depth it is still open to editing, changes, additional sources for my claims, clarification and follow up posts. So, this is likely not my last mouthwashing post as I believe that there is still a huge amount of techniques, story and admiration to go over and I would like to go even more in-depth to these characters. So If you like that stick around! Of course, I'm super sorry to ramble on forever. 

Feel free to rant about any of the points I've made below! Be kind.

Also to all Swansea and Daisuke fans, I'm super sorry for not covering them and hopefully I'll discuss them in future, I just didn't believe that they were 100% relevant to the point of this particular post. If you have any points that do relate to them though feel free to add on!

Thanks everyone for having a quick read! Bye~~!

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