ordinarysparkplug

[ordinarysparkplug]

something about mouthwashing that has always bothered me is the cake-baking scene. where the game’s dialogue is usually very realistic, this scene feels… weird. the dialogue is unnatural and too video-gamey. anya, swansea, and jimmy are telling curly things he should already know for the player’s benefit, such as the backstory for the communal birthday parties and how to bake the cake. it’s strange. but i think i’ve finally figured it out!

We start with Daisuke. “Look at your face!” suggests that Curly’s reaction to being surprise-birthday’d was an expression of shock. This is supported by Jimmy later apologizing to Curly for jumping him like that.

Back to the present. Curly, who tends to use fewer filler words comparatively, uses the word “uh” twice in two lines. “Uh. Wow,” followed by:

I wanna talk about this question for a minute. Let’s look at the scene. Curly can see the birthday party decorations from his position. Curly knows the approximate date off the top of his head, according to the dead pixel scene, so he should know it’s around his birthday. Curly has also undoubtedly experienced many Pony Express birthday parties before. All this to say, why the hell is he asking what the occasion is? It should be pretty obvious, no?

The answer is dissociation.

We know from Curly’s POV introduction that he spaces out in conversation, and that Anya is aware of this. This lasts to the point where he’s staring off at nothing until Anya asks if he’s listening.

He also appears to dissociate during his conversation with Jimmy before the crash: he stops talking completely until prompted by Jimmy to respond and doesn’t seem to understand what’s happening (Jimmy tells him everyone on the ship should die and Curly seemingly agrees, only to very clearly be upset and in shock when Jimmy goes and makes this happen).

Now, Jimmy, Anya, and Swansea have known Curly for years. Seems pretty reasonable that they would be able to recognize signs of his dissociation, yeah? And they do.

Again, these are things that Curly should absolutely know. I believe Anya and Jimmy saw the facial expression that Daisuke referred to and noticed Curly’s inexplicable confusion and realized he was dissociating. They then informed him of the details of the situation while posing it as a question, likely in an attempt to ground him. Anya ends her information with “right?” while Jimmy ends his with “remember?” This allows them to give Curly the information he isn’t grasping in a gentle way that doesn’t call attention to the fact that this is something he should already know.

Anya then gives him more direct instruction by telling him where the cake recipe is (again, a thing he should absolutely know considering he eats in that kitchen every day) and lightly tells him to go make it. She’s guiding him to a task that he would ordinarily be able to complete on his own because she can tell that he’s unsure and out of it.

Swansea—who, while not as close to Curly as Jimmy and not as attentive to the crew’s mental wellbeing as Anya, has known the captain for years— does the same thing, more directly. He asks Curly about the cake recipe and tells him where to find the ingredients and recipe. Again, Curly should absolutely know this already, but for some reason he isn’t doing it on his own.

From the crew’s perspective, if you as Curly choose to engage in this optional dialogue, Anya and Jimmy told Curly to go make the cake, and instead of doing that Curly wandered quietly around the lounge. Brought on, probably, by this dissociative episode. So Swansea reminds Curly what he’s supposed to be doing and where to go to do it.

(While Jimmy and Anya are consistently shown to be in tune to Curly’s emotions (Jimmy moreso pre-crash), Swansea typically is not; however, he’s standing near Anya during this segment, meaning she had the opportunity to tell him what she’d noticed.)

Now, an interesting thing about Curly’s optional conversations with the rest of the crew here: He doesn’t say anything during them. This is a little odd, considering Curly is a fairly social character. He does have other optional interactions where he doesn’t respond, but those are typically after he’s just had a back-and-forth with the other person or where you’re able to respond nonverbally (such as closing/opening the door to Utility when Jimmy jokes about it). But for the most part, Curly does respond to what others say.

Not here, though. He can drift between Daisuke, Anya and Swansea, and Jimmy, but he doesn’t say a word apart from when Jimmy notices his silence and prompts him to speak.

Even then, he just agrees with Jimmy without any indication that he processed what Jimmy said. If you go for Jimmy’s second optional dialogue, Curly once again has no response.

All this to say—

This post was not made to demonstrate any overarching story element. Honestly, I kinda thought I was stringing conclusions together. But now that it’s all down? It… kinda makes sense. This is consistent with Curly’s character, with Anya’s and Jimmy’s dynamics with Curly, and with the typically excellent, human, non-meta dialogue Mouthwashing utilizes in all other scenes.

It works down to the little details, such as Daisuke being the only one who doesn’t have weird dialogue here; he’s only known Curly a few months and is probably less in tune to the captain’s mannerisms. (Plus the crew tends not to tell him about anything serious.) Furthermore, dissociation can be caused by stress, and Curly is VERY stressed in this scene, preoccupied as he is with needing to tell the crew about the termination. His flavor text during this scene demonstrates that pretty well; his flavor text is much more cynical than his norm and often leads to him thinking about the termination rather than what he’s supposed to be doing.

Is there a possibility that I’m completely wrong? Of course. But I finally have a plausible explanation for something that has been bugging me for months, so I’m satisfied.

hope you enjoyed today’s episode of MOUTHWASHING THEORY TO FILL A PLOT HOLE THAT NO ONE EXCEPT MY PEDANTIC ASS THINKS ABOUT <3

If I said anything wrong re: dissociation or if you have another Watsonian explanation for why this scene is written so oddly, please do feel free to share!

[ordinarysparkplug]

Spread the word.

[ordinarysparkplug]

𝙶𝚊𝚖𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚝𝚕𝚎 𝚑𝚘𝚛𝚜𝚎𝚜 🐎🐎🐎

Fully illustrated board and rule book for a board game, directly inspired by Wrong Organ's Mouthwashing !

• Want to print your own ? Follow the link in the comments, and get all the files on my Kofi for the unbeatable price of (at least) 3 bucks !

This game can and will break friendships and i will not take any accountability for it - if you love your friends play the ludo variant.

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hii i hope this is ok to ask but i love how fucking HUGE you make curly look, do you have any advice on how to draw muscular frames? :o

thankies!! i love drawing him Robust-Looking <3

as far as advice goes, when it comes to anatomy i always recommend the channel proko on youtube, they have all kinds of videos about how to draw anatomy with each area of the body broken down. basically, if you're trying for anatomical accuracy with muscles and stuff, their vids are a great way to grasp how muscles work!

as far as general shapes and vibes though, i have a couple quick tips of my own <3

the biggest part, if you can imagine, is proportions. typically tutorials will tell you the average shoulder width for a person is about 2-3 heads wide, so if you're making someone Bigger and Beefier, you'll wanna go past that a bit. (and making a character's head smaller is gonna make their body look bigger by comparison, so if you wanna go crazy, shrank that thang)

For example, Daisuke (who i draw as lean, but still with some muscle, especially in his arms) is 4 heads wide at his shoulders, while beefcake curly over here is 5 (sometimes more depending on the drawing lol). something as simple as broadening the shoulders already gives a character a beefier-looking silhouette.

[ID: Simple rough sketches of Daisuke and Curly from Mouthwashing with colored circles showing how many heads wide their shoulder width is. Daisuke is four, Curly is five. end ID]

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"but what if i don't know how to draw the muscles and am not going for realism/don't feel confident enough in that yet? how do i give a muscular vibe without as much detail?" FEAR NOT it's super easy. here we use the power of SHAPES!!

i draw jimmy and curly with the same "skeleton" or base frame, so i think they're a good example of this next bit. despite having the same bones, i broaden the fleshy parts on curly's limbs (focusing on his shoulders cuz he has big ass shoulders) and keep his upper arms wide before tapering down into his hands (muscles tend to be largest at the base of the limb and get smaller up to the hands/feet but there's plenty of design exceptions). i carry that shape language down into his legs (which i emphasize with his fitted calf-height boots). meanwhile jimmy stays fairly squared, especially when fully clothed

[ID: Simple sketches of Jimmy and Curly from Mouthwashing with notes describing their shapes. Jimmy has a rectangle over his body and is noted as being "relatively rectangular" and the shapes of his limbs are mostly straight. Curly has a trapezoid over his body and has a "top heavy shape" with limb shapes that taper down and in. end ID]

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and honestly, a good hack to make a character read as more muscular or robust is to give them a buddy that contrasts that. once again, jimmy will assist.

even in a simple drawing like this, giving jimmy the opposite tapering to his limbs just emphasizes curly's hugelargeness by comparison. it also shows that you don't need a lot of detail or realism to convey Beefiness

[ID: Another, more simplified doodle of Jimmy and Curly, pointing out that Jim's limbs taper outwards while Curly's taper in. end ID]

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another final quick tip i have is: the neck makes a difference!

people with more muscle tend to have thicker necks (it's because of the muscles there, if you can believe it) and it's kinda become one of my fav bits of drawing curly lol. idk why <3 necks fun to draw <3 for him, i draw his neck starting at the very edges of his face and widening out at the bottom to match the shape of his head and to flow a bit more into his trap muscles, but you could go Even Further Beyond if you so Choose. i've found this is a surprisingly good way to convey Beefy Person Beefy even if you don't have as much anatomical knowledge.

[ID: Four bust sketches of Daisuke and Curly comparing their necks. The first two show them both facing forwards. Daisuke's neck is slimmer and straight, while Curly's neck meets the edges of his jaw and has a wider base with higher trap muscles. The second two shows them in profile, with the back of Daisuke's cranium sticking out past his neck, while Curly's is even with his neck, showing how thick is is from the side. end ID]

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in review we got:

widen shoulders relative to the head to convey a Broad silhouette

taper limbs inwards from base to extremities to emphasize the shape/size of the muscles

give em a less muscular buddy for contrast

thick necks help a lot in conveying a muscular build

and of course, i know i only used men in these examples, but these tips will work just fine regardless of a character's gender. please draw more beefy women ily <3

i hope this made sense and helps you and whoever else might see this uwu

if anyone has any questions about it i will. Try. to answer them. making these posts is oddly difficult lol

[ordinarysparkplug]

Jimblasted AU masterpost

The post for easier navigation that I'm going to keep editing and updating.

The tag for this au on my blog is jimblasted au for additional info and asks related to it!

What is it about?

This is a "what if" AU, not a fix-it. Jimmy gets blasted in the cockpit, Curly doesn't, everything else before this divergence from canon is as it was in the game.

This AU is more episodic rather than story-driven, but there is an overarching storyline with plot progression.

CWs for this AU's topics include everything in Mouthwashing: rape, abuse, blood, gore, suicide. It's nothing too graphic but be aware.

Comics

Our Captain doomed us all - Intro

+ Ever

Routine

+ Thinking

Game night?

"The good stuff"

At ease

Miscellaneous art

Some early sketches - first jimblasted au post!

The Blasted trio playing scrabble (+ omagpies, hotdogmchiggin)

[ordinarysparkplug]

man and sin, cain, man and sin love each other

(Nathaniel Orion // Cousin Marnie)

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RIP Joann, now what?

I wanted to make a post I could copy and paste and or link when I see folks asking where to buy fabrics when Joann is gone. I sew a lot, generally between 100-200 items a year and I don't do it on a big budget. Stores are not in a particular order.

Notions:

Wawak.com - start here, mostly stay here. Wawak is a supplier for professional sewing businesses and have the prices that show it. I will not pay for gutermann Mara 100 anywhere else. I buy buttons, tools, thread, and most elastic here.

Stitch Love Studio - this is where I buy lingerie supplies https://www.etsy.com/shop/StitchLoveStudio?ref=yr_purchases

Fabric:

Fabric Mart - this is one where you want to sign up for emails and never buy unless its on sale. They run different sales every day and they rotate. Mostly deadstock fabrics but I buy more from here than anywhere else. Fantastic customer service and if you watch you can get things like $6 wool suiting or $4 cotton jersey. https://fabricmartfabrics.com/

Fabrics-Store - again, buy the sales not the full price. Sign up for the emails but redirect them to a folder because it is TOO MANY. They stock linen or good but not amazing quality. https://www.fabrics-store.com/

Purple Seamstress - This is where I buy my solid cotton lycra jersey. They have other things, but the jersey is what I'm here for. Inexpensive and very good quality. If you ask she will mail you a swatch card for the solids. https://purpleseamstressfabric.com/

LA Finch - deadstock fabrics with a fantastic remnant selection https://lafinchfabrics.myshopify.com/

Califabrics - mix of deadstock and big brands, easy to navigate and always seem to have good denim in stock. https://califabrics.com/

Boho Fabrics - good variety, nice bundles. I have also gotten some really great trims from here. https://www.bohofabrics.com/

Firecracker Fabrics - garment and quilting fabrics, really nice selection and great sale section. I've bought $5 yard quilting cottons here several times. https://www.firecrackerfabrics.com/

Hancock's of Paducah - Quilting fabric and some limited garment fabric. AMAZING sale section. Do not sleep on the sale section. This is my first stop when buying quilting fabrics. Usually the last stop too. Not particularly speedy shipping. https://www.hancocks-paducah.com/

Itokri - This is something a little different. Itokri is an Indian business with incredible traditional fabrics. Shipping to the US is expensive, but the fabric is so inexpensive it evens out. I generally end up paying like $30 for shipping. Beautiful ikat and block prints. https://itokri.com/

Miss Matatabi - this is a little treat. This isn't where you go to save money, but there are so many beautiful things in this shop. Ships from Japan incredibly quickly. https://shop.missmatatabi.com/

Lucky Deluxe - Craft thrift store, always has an incredible selection and fantastic customer service. I need to close the tab fast because I never go to this website without finding something I need. https://www.luckydeluxefabrics.com/

Swanson's - the OG of online craft thrift stores, but I find their website harder to navigate. https://www.swansonsfabrics.com

Honorary Mentions: I haven't shopped at these places yet but I have had them recommended and likely will at some point.

A Thrifty Notion - https://athriftynotion.com/

Creative Closeouts - https://creativecloseoutsfabric.com/ being rebranded to sewsnip.com on March 1 - quilting deadstock

Hawthorne Supply Co. - I just got this rec and I think I need to not look too closely or I'm going to slip with my debit card. https://www.hawthornesupplyco.com/

This is not an exhaustive list of everywhere you can buy fabric, or even a full list of where I shop. There are SO many options out there in the world. You also need to think outside the fabric store box. I thrift men's shirt fabrics for quilts and sheets for backing fabric. I don't do a ton of in person thrifting and my local stores don't get a lot of craft materials but every thrift store is its own universe and reflects the community it is in. Go out and find something cool.

Oh and final note: Don't shop at Hobby Lobby.

[ordinarysparkplug]

[ordinarysparkplug]

If you live in the USA and you're pleading for donations to pay your rent, bills, or get food then dial 211! Please dial 211 before the last minute!

It's a toll free service with people who will help you find programs in your community to pay those bills, find food, and find housing! They will give you numbers to call so you can get help.

It is not 100% foolproof. Their job is to direct you to a program they believe will help your current issue, but it's still a step up from praying random strangers online will give you enough cash before a deadline! The added benefit of these community programs, which get funded by the local government most of the time, is if there are more people using them then they can get more money to help more people.

You're not taking resources from other people if you use your community services. Your taxes pay for them. Use them.

Dial 211 first to see if they can help, and if for some reason they can't, then make your donation posts!

https://www.211.org/

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IMPORTANT!

It’s the no-internet dinosaur’s birthday!!

Turn off your internet! He has a hat!!

[ordinarysparkplug]

Fun, someone said the words “prior authorizations” around me and now I’m pissed off at 730am on my day off. I go off on this rant all the time. ALL THE TIME.

[ordinarysparkplug]

man this year is gonna be the year i either die or become someone else i dont know which one maybe both

[ordinarysparkplug]

i know we joke about cis artists having the weirdest sense of anatomy, but also even when the anatomy is fine, no one seems to want to draw women doing normal things

[ordinarysparkplug]

telling a vampire "youre not allowed in my house anymore" and they get blasted out through the nearest wall

[ordinarysparkplug]

telling a vampire "youre not allowed in my house anymore" and they get blasted out through the nearest wall