Mouthwashing meta underneath the cut (tw)
Whatâs fucked up is that Mouthwashingâs main horror belongs to Anya. Anya is living the Shining and Alien and a thousand of anyoneâs worst nightmares, in space, alone, with no one on her side, a ticking timebomb in her own body, and not any of the characters, or the narrative, or even the players, acknowledge that to the extent she deserves. Because sheâs a woman sheâs just treated differently.
Other people besides me have pointed out, that Anya not only told Curly, who failed her, she also told Swansea, who also failed her, and people like to paint him as better than Curly. They want to see the best in the men around her just like she does, but Swansea ALSO belittles her, calls her a âso-called nurseâ and says that âeven she canât ruin [opening the storage unit] with her presenceâ when jimmy walks in on Anya talking to Swansea in the cockpit sheâs crying, and placating and again, reacting in resigned acceptance, which implies that Swanseas response to her was something along the lines of âsuck it upâ. Swansea didnât give her the axe, he did nothing to help or protect her, he kept the cryopod for Daisuke, he never considered her.
and it is very, VERY intentional on the part of the writing, that we never get to see Daisuke and Anya really interact. They could have had a friendly companionship, given their shared doodles and his concern on her being locked in the med bay, but we never actually see them talk to each other in any real capacity. and even if she had gone to him for help, thereâs very little he could do as the youngest and least senior member of the Tulpar. And besides that, the only time Daisuke mentions women (who arenât his mom), heâs talking about âhot bikini babesâ. Iâm not bashing him for that, taken on its own itâd feel like harmless bro low-level misogyny, but itâs part of how the writing is very intentionally alienating Anya constantly in so many little ways.
Anya is the ONLY woman on the ship, and all of the men on the ship either abuse, belittle, degrade, objectify and dismiss, if not her specifically, than at the very least her gender, and by and large we ignore that because Jimmy is so comparatively horrible. But there was no chance for Anya on that ship, she did everything she reasonably could have done, and the reason itâs so hard to conceptualize a believable fix-it for the plot, is that the men around Anya and the system they all exist in, would all have to change on a fundamental level for anything about Anyaâs situation to change, and even if the ship didnât crash, Anya, unlike the rest of the crew, would still be living a horror story.
She is the actual protagonist of the plot, she is the final girl who died first. We are denied her perspective just like she is denied agency, control, respect, etc.
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