I Really Really Appreciate How Much The Mouthwashing Gameplay Emphasizes That Curly Is Still A Feeling

i really really appreciate how much the mouthwashing gameplay emphasizes that curly is still a feeling human person after the crash. he reacts to every single thing that happens around him. he makes decisions. he changes his behavior as the game progresses. these subtle details are everything to me. he’s not a prop.

CW for discussion of medical abuse, forcefeeding, torture, gore, autocannibalism, basically everything curly experiences in-game

“he doesn’t want to keep still any more.” our first line in curly’s presence. anya doesn’t say “he won’t keep still anymore,” she says he doesn’t want to. this diction provides a sharp contrast to jimmy, whose only acknowledgment of curly’s desires comes up when he puts words in curly’s mouth, while anya observes curly’s body language to extrapolate what he actually wants and needs. she considers him a person, just as the player is meant to; jimmy does not.

the progression of the pills scenes. in the first one, he’s in about as little pain as we see him. he just chokes it down.

in the second pills scene, anya is late on giving him the pills and he’s clearly in great pain, crying, tossing and turning even though that probably just hurts him more. i do think the way the crying can be heard through the entire ship is jimmy’s auditory hallucination, but it was loud enough to wake jimmy up from the lounge. when jim actually does give him the pills, curly briefly resists, but after that first hit, he cries out in pain and then gives this strangled “huh?” before the beating continues. he cries out a couple more times before realizing jimmy wants him to be quiet, and he stops crying out, lets jimmy give him the pills, and sobs quietly before going silent.

in the third pills scene, curly seems to be trying not to make noise or resist. he still sobs after the pills go down and falls quiet after.

after anya’s and daisuke’s deaths, curly lies so still and quiet that i’ve witnessed multiple players be shocked that he’s still alive when his chest moves.

and the infamous laughter… that’s definitive proof that curly isn’t just reacting to stimuli like pain (which would not make him less of a person, for the record) but actively observing and thinking about the events around him.

when jimmy picks curly up. despite the fact that having his burns pressed against another person would be excruciating, curly does not react. just breaths hoarsely and keeps his eye locked on jimmy — until he ends up on the table surrounded by the corpses. then, and only then, does his breath get panicky, and he starts to cry softly.

cutting the leg. my goodness, those screams. incredible voice acting, first of all, but it really stands out to me that it isn’t a terrifying, inhuman scream. it’s very human, very desperate and pained, mixed with heaving, awful sobs. and afterward? curly’s so shaken that he’s visibly moving his jaw on his own as he gasps for breath. and the look in his eye…

in the force feeding scene — which, in my mind, was a hallucinatory version of real events — curly is silent and still. he only moves or cries out when he’s forced to via vomiting or the wheels turning (though the latter is likely imagined). he doesn’t react to anything else. doesn’t even hold up his head. but he gives these pained cries when the wheels turn, and this draws awareness to how he’s being treated as a prop here with intention. he’s being dehumanized, reduced to an object, but we as the player are painfully aware that this is a person. he’s not reacting more because he’s shutting down from all the trauma he’s experienced.

and i have a lot in my head about the juxtaposition of curly POV scenes with jimmy interacting with post-crash curly scenes. they’re often perfectly timed to remind you that the person on the cot, on the table, or in your arms is the same man who you were a minute ago, and vice versa.

just. man. mouthwashing emphasizes curly’s humanity at every corner, and that makes his story so much more horrifying.

i really like this game and i really like that it displays a disabled character being dehumanized by the player character while also emphasizing to the player that this is not right.