so, I've learned something a bit unfortunate about myself that I need to work on

and this lesson about myself came from the game Mouthwashing

In the game, you find out that the one woman on this small freighter space ship on a year long voyage is pregnant, and the copilot is the father

and this woman, Anya, without ever saying "Jimmy raped me" makes it pretty clear that Jimmy raped her

she complains about how the crew cabin doors don't lock, how she doesn't want to be left alone with Jimmy, she's found out in the Rec room in the middle of the night, saying she has a hard time sleeping in her room, she's afraid Jimmy is going to use the one gun on the ship to shoot her when he finds out she's pregnant, and more very obvious signs

and yet, somehow

on the entire first playthrough

I did not put together that Jimmy had raped her

it wasn't until I watched a video essay about later that I realized it

part of my job working in education is to be on the lookout for warning signs of this kind of stuff

and yet somehow in a story that went out of its way to make it obvious without outright stating it, I didn't see it

which casts serious doubt on my ability to be an ally in real life

anyway, just something I felt like confessing

I hope that it will make me more aware in the future

I'm writing this Plurk mainly as a way of reinforcing to myself that I need to be more aware of such things

I also didn't pick up on it

well, at least I'm not alone

same here actually

i watched an LP and it wasn't until I scrolled down to the comments and saw people talking about the rape that i went "oh. ohhh."

yeah. an LP i was watching didn't notice until we'd gone further into the game. i think when the gun scene happened with anya it was when they were like "OH"

for me i think it's the fact that like. i simply do not expect that to be the answer in a context like this. like I don't expect a game to be implying "the player character committed an atrocity against someone you are still regularly interacting with" without it ever actually like. being acknowledged openly

sadly that's often how it is in real life

real life is different because real life isn't constrained by the expectations of writing tropes

true but idk, it's something I've seen in real life and in fiction and it's clear to me but different life experiences. etc

I think the true horror of Mouthwashing is making me realize how easily I could be Curly

Everyone thinks Curly is a great guy and he just lets that shit happen under his watch, and there's really no excuse for it

Like I mean I'm pretty certain in the exact situation I wouldn't have let Jimmy get away with it

but the leading up to it, the not seeing the obvious when it was my responsibility to do so

Years ago I kicked a dude from my friend group because he kissed a girl in our group immediately after she clearly told him no, but like, looking back there were so many warning signs, and it was so clear in hindsight that he was unsafe and I should've booted him earlier, and did I really do enough? I don't think I did.

I think that the number of men who are Jimmy in RL is probably a relatively small percentage (and yet still way too many), but it's how many of us are Curly, even when we imagine ourselves otherwise

ok I retract my "true horror" statement because obviously there are more horrifying things going on in the game (for example, Anya's experience)

that's a good analysis though

you're right, that is a big element of the horror here. so many of us could be curly