Latest Posts by jeanluigi07 - Page 2
Daughter of the Beast, Protector of Hallownest
Part of my personal challenge yippe
i missed a solid third of my physics class doodling hollow knight today someone take my ipad away from me
put them in silksong team cherry PLEASE
Ok but why when you have art block, why does making shitposts help?? Like genuinely, I put a lot of effort into shitposts but for some reason it really helps my artblock?
what is this witchcraft?
Forgot to post the shirtless version along with the original photo. (Also I cannot draw body hair to save my life.)
Reunion with Quirrel ♡
week 14 "oh, hello there! seems we both tread far from the path. i can hardly believe those dusty old highways led to such a lush and lively place! this building suggests some form of worship, though its idol has clearly been long forgotten. doubles equally well for a moment's respite." -quirrel ahoy hoy! here is week 14 c:. this one took about 3.5 hours, and has 83 unique color values. thought its been a long while since ive drawn quirrel, so i gave it another go. anyways, thank you for checking out my art, i hope you have a wonderful week! ♡
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!
Hiiii aa i forgot to post these!!😭😭🙏
Hollow knights 8th anniversary was a few days ago and I drew smth simple for my fav bug game!! Oh and ghost doodles too <3
Some drawings that I made for the fanfic "Off Balance" by @mrslittletall 🩵 Read it here
I can't recommend it enough, I'm obsessed!
oh this is also an old one
Happy birthday Hollow Knight!! I should draw this game more
I wish I could have done more but not at the moment (;´༎ຶٹ༎ຶ`)
(Don’t mind me posting this a day late)
Do the candles look forward to being used？
Enjoy bidding adieu，adieu？
Every word I have saved for you came out wrong afterwards
So I spoke no more
Uhh might have gotten a bit to carried away from this color palette thing :D
the sudden urge to draw memes as the fandom dies
original-
Tell me you can hear me.
(Og I Redrew under cut!!!!)
