The SuperDQP Weekly - February 17, 2025
I finally played Mouthwashing. It’s been talked about online to hell and back, but there was one character whose dynamic spoke to me. We’re talking about that this week.
This is gonna be another heavy one. I hope this hurts, and all that.
Content warning for the initial game rec: transphobia, objectification, sex work
Content warning for the main body: workplace abuse, alcoholism, sexual assault, suicide, Mouthwashing spoilers
Game recommendation
This week’s recommendation is a heavy, short itch.io Game Boy ROM by the name of He Fucked the Girl Out of Me.
More of a playable memoir than a game, it covers the experiences of a transgender sex worker who is pushed to dissociation and objectified by a culture that sexually commodifies transness. It’s a frank, intense, and vulnerable look at a world that, without judging, took its toll on the author. The game immersed me in these experiences in ways that still affect me months after playing it.
It’s an emotionally difficult object; it will take a lot out of you. But it’s worth taking the time to experience it.
He Fucked the Girl Out of Me is available for free on Windows PC via Steam and itch.io. The itch.io version is playable in-browser, and also offers a free Game Boy ROM to play where you wish. The game is Steam Deck verified.
His behavior was inexcusable
Mouthwashing landed earlier in 2024 with a giant splash, earning critical acclaim and commercial success. It invites interpretation, painting with a broad thematic brush, and it's been used as a vector to discuss capitalism, ableism, and sexual assault.
But one aspect of the narrative grabbed me by the throat and wouldn’t let go. One character got under my skin in a way that the others wouldn’t.
That’s not to say the other characters aren’t well-written, or that their arcs weren’t as deep. Far from it. This character is a relatively minor one in the grand scheme of things. But I haven’t stopped thinking about him.
We’re talking about Swansea this week.
Swansea is the chief mechanic on board the Tulpar, with the young and naive intern Daisuke working directly under him. He’s the oldest member of the crew, and he’s misanthropic and grouchy towards everyone, showing particular ire to Daisuke.
After the Tulpar’s crash, and the subsequent discovery of boxes on boxes of mouthwash in the cargo hold, Swansea loses hope and gives into his alcoholic instincts, becoming nihilistic and outright hostile to the rest of the crew.
Swansea is protective over the engineering bay throughout the game, doggedly keeping the player out for what player character Jimmy suspects are selfish reasons. It’s eventually revealed that he was guarding a lone cryopod to save Daisuke, but Daisuke gets himself terminally injured trying to rescue crew nurse Anya from a suicidal episode – a plot point that is honestly deserving of its own newsletter – and Swansea decides to, uh… euthanize him.
With an axe.
Jimmy eventually kills Swansea out of a false sense of responsibility and protectiveness – another plot point that is honestly deserving of its own newsletter – but the death kind of amounts to nothing in the long run.
So… that’s a lot. Swansea is disgruntled but still ultimately protective – at least, the way he sees it. This is a character arc as old as the hills. So why did it grab me? Why is it still the most defining aspect of Mouthwashing for me, out of a vast pool of other defining aspects?
A few years ago, I worked with my own Swansea, in a sense. We’ll call him Gary. I will not be using his real name. I don’t know where he is now, and I don’t care to.
Gary was chronically ill, constantly grumpy, and had a pessimistic outlook on life. He would constantly neg me whenever I did things right, finding ways to subtly insult me even when complimenting my work. In quiet moments, he would vent about the world and how cruel it is.
Despite all of that, I was not Gary’s “Daisuke,” if you want to make a direct analogue. Gary had a different “Daisuke” of his own.
If all of the above seems rough, Gary went a step beyond with this other coworker. He yelled. He screamed. He insulted directly. He spread negative opinions on him to me, behind his back.
Later on, after an earthquake seriously wrecked our work space, we had to move to a more cramped environment that kind of broke him. He took his frustrations out on me; not even out of irritation with me, just with the situation. He physically attacked furniture and shouted directly into my ear.
Eventually, I called my manager and successfully asked to move my schedule to work with someone else. I only saw him sporadically after that, and after the business merged with another and our positions were eliminated, I never saw him again.
I don’t know what was going on in his brain. I don’t know if he saw himself as “protective” of myself or the other coworker he abused, the same way Swansea looks at Daisuke. If he did, it didn’t show. And ultimately, I don’t think it matters.
It was tempting, at that time, to look at Gary and try to empathize with him. To wonder why he was the way he was. To be kind, to do my damnedest to not get on his bad side and maybe even be kind to him. Turn the other cheek. After all, how much must he be suffering for him to be this way towards not just myself, but others?
This is a common fallacy among abuse victims. I found myself with these thoughts repeating again as I entered an abusive romantic relationship. There’s a need to understand and rationalize the abuse and humanize the person who’s afflicting you with so much pain, especially as you spend so much of your time with them.
And this, indeed, is the eye through which Mouthwashing views Swansea. He negs Daisuke and talks smack about him, but he ultimately cares for him. He wants him to survive this whole ordeal, using the only cryopod on the ship, if necessary. He kills him not out of malice, but to put him out of his misery.
The moment of Daisuke’s murder has stuck with me and will probably stick with me for decades. To me, this kind of sympathy is terrifying, and the thought of whether Gary saw me or the other coworker that way or not haunts me. A part of me would honestly rather have the direct malice of a broken person than their abusive, potentially lethal or possessive care.
But ultimately, wondering whether his abuse came from a place of malice or respect (or both) is an exercise in futility. It left the same psychological scars regardless.
In the last moment of his life, Swansea confesses to Jimmy that his alcoholic years, before sobering up and eventually succumbing to alcohol again on the ship, were the best of his life. The years where he was most broken, most numb, and most self-destructive were the ones he remembers most fondly.
I never want to work with someone like that ever again.
If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, know that you are not alone, and that help is available at any point. Don’t hesitate to call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 (TALK), or call 9-8-8 for mental health crises.
LGBTQIA+ youth and adults can also seek confidential help with The Trevor Project’s lifeline at 1-866-488-7386, and can call the transgender-staffed Trans Lifeline at 1-877-565-8860 in the US, or 1-877-330-6366 in Canada.
Wishlist recommendation
Deep breaths.
So I’m not the only one who remembers GoldenEye 007 on the N64 fondly, right?
(I’ve never been good at tonal shifts, I’m sorry.)
I didn’t necessarily grow up with GoldenEye, but I did grow up with TimeSplitters, which I reckon is close enough. The campaigns of those games are fun, silly, and offered a cool difficulty system that added extra objectives and challenges to levels rather than just bulking up the enemies or restricting ammunition. I miss shooters that do that.
Agent 64: Spies Never Die is a deliberate throwback to that era, complete with controls that aren’t unwieldy and a playable frame-rate.
Playing the demo was refreshingly nostalgic, preserving what I loved about games like TimeSplitters while remaining palatable to modern shooter sensibilities. It showed me that, yes, there was something about those old games that I enjoyed, and that’s worth preserving in future FPS games.
Don’t get me wrong; shooters are a diverse enough genre without that old mission design. I love games like Dusk, the Doom reboots, and Titanfall 2 as they are for what they bring to the table. Agent 64 simply adds more diversity to the pool, and I love it for that.
Agent 64: Spies Never Die is currently slated for release on Windows PC via Steam. A demo is currently available via Steam.