Jimmy

Jimmy is the main protagonist of the 2024 Swedish psychological horror game Mouthwashing.

He is the co-pilot of the Tulpar freighter, next in line to the captain, Curly. Shortly after the freighter's company, Pony Express, shut down, the spaceship would then crash into an asteroid, presumably caused by Curly with intention. However, it was eventually revealed that, over feelings of jealousy towards the captain, general inadequacy, personal circumstances, and his inability to "take responsibility," Jimmy had orchestrated the crash instead and blamed Curly.

Appearance Jimmy is a Caucasian, adult man with straight brown hair slicked into a mid-part, brown eyes, and light stubble. He has some wrinkles and a tall, lean body type. He wears a navy Pony Express jumpsuit over a white long-sleeved t-shirt and black sneakers.

Jimmy is a narcissistic and increasingly delusional individual whose jealousy, insecurities, and refusal to accept accountability lead him down a path of irrationality, selfishness, and cowardice. He envies Curly's success and deflects his own inadequacies onto others. Instead of addressing these feelings responsibly, he drags everyone down with him. His breakdown culminates in sabotaging the crew's mission, resulting in the death and/or psychological downfall of everyone aboard, all while trying to harness control over the situation, despite his efforts proving increasingly futile.

Jimmy exhibits significant entitlement in his relationship with authority, as he aspires to attain the same position as Curly without realizing the burden of responsibilities that come with it and forgoes any effort to learn himself. He often acts impulsively—such as when he crashes the ship, immediately regretting it, and ultimately leaves Curly unable to serve as captain. Rather than facing the consequences, he shifts the blame onto Curly. Once he steps into the captain's role himself, Jimmy becomes overwhelmed and starts berating the crew, especially Anya when she asks for help with painkillers, even though he brought this situation upon himself. Eventually, he realizes he isn't suited for command and that Curly should have remained captain.

Throughout the game, his arrogance and abusive nature manifests in how he manipulates and demeans each crew member differently. He convinces Daisuke that Swansea would be proud of him if he climbed into a dangerous vent, disregarding the risk of injury. When Daisuke gets hurt, Jimmy tries to help with mouthwash as a disinfectant, despite Anya saying it wouldn't work. He even berates Swansea for "killing" Daisuke, even though Swansea was only able to give him a mercy killing due to the severity of his wounds caused by Jimmy's own callousness.

His overwhelming narcissism prevents him from recognizing his inability to withstand pressure, his disregard for the crew's concerns and advice, and his tendency to make everything about himself. He often projects his issues onto others by, ironically, assuming the worst; a clear example of this is when he scolds Curly for planning to leave the "dirt" behind while framing himself as the hero upon the dissolution of Pony Express—exactly what Jimmy does for the rest of the story. At the same time, while still berating their advice, he repeats the words of others without fully understanding the meaning, instead twisting them to fit his perspective. As a result, he is unreliable as a narrator.

Yet, deep down, Jimmy senses the reprehensibility of his actions and feels guilty, though he remains delusional, as he is more concerned with envisioning himself as a hero or victim than making up for his cruelty. Over time, he devolves into a madman, haunted by hallucinations urging him to take responsibility for his actions, including visions of Curly, Daisuke, and Anya's rape-conceived child through body/pregnancy horror. Although he attempts to apologize to Curly and places him in the cryopod, he never truly confronts his issues. He refuses to acknowledge that he hasn't "fixed" anything and selectively ignores what he did to the other crew members aside from Curly.

Not much is known about Jimmy's background before the events of the game. What is known is that he was a poor, jobless man who used to be a close friend of Curly, a successful captain of the Pony Express. Curly considered Jimmy a good friend and used his influence within the company to get him hired as his copilot on the Tulpar spaceship alongside the already employed Anya and Swansea. Although Jimmy owed Curly for finally giving him a job, he was secretly envious, believing he should have been the captain instead of Curly.

As a member of the Tulpar crew, Jimmy was somewhat of a recluse, interacting with the crew primarily when collaboration was unavoidable, and it was apparent that he didn't get along with them, though he maintained a dependable and responsible front. He almost always refused to undergo psychological evaluations by Anya, and when he did, he offered unserious answers, such as claiming to be attracted to horses. Despite being intended as humorous, these remarks made Anya quite uncomfortable.

Negatively affected by the isolation aboard the Tulpar ship, Jimmy began coercing Anya, the only female member of the crew, into intercourse to vent his frustration. He allegedly broke into her dormitory and sexually assaulted her, resulting in pregnancy. Later, while the crew celebrated Curly's surprise birthday party, Curly revealed the news of Pony Express's dissolution. Jimmy's stress continued to increase after learning that he would be unemployed after their current delivery. He berated Curly at his own birthday party, accusing him of abandoning the crew while maintaining his own status. Later, Anya would inform Jimmy of the pregnancy that resulted from his assault, and Curly would attempt to mediate after being informed by Anya as well, but to no avail. Jimmy's instability culminated in him impulsively steering the ship toward an oncoming asteroid and disabling the autopilot shortly after his talk with Curly, intending for it to crash and kill everyone aboard. This left Curly to attempt to avert the impact, with only partial success, as he was maimed in the process.

After the crash, with the crew trapped, Jimmy quickly placed the blame on Curly, convincing the others that the captain had lost his mind and intended to take everyone down with him—though this was actually Jimmy's own plan. Seizing the opportunity to become the new captain, he assured the crew that he would fix everything. The crew decides to open the cargo hold after months of surviving on rations, hoping to find spare machine parts to repair the ship or extra food and water. They are dismayed to find only mouthwash but drink it for sustenance anyway. Swansea and Anya are seen discreetly discussing her assault at Jimmy's hands. As the months passed, most of the crew succumbed to despair, while Jimmy became increasingly disturbed, pressured, and frustrated with those around him. He even forcefully administered Curly's medication while abusing him, causing the wounded captain additional pain. His mistreatment of the crew led to their psychological downfall amid numerous mishaps.

Eventually, Anya locks herself in the medical bay with Curly. Daisuke notifies Jimmy, who becomes concerned for Curly's safety under the assumption that Anya will euthanize him. Exploiting Daisuke's naivety, Jimmy drugs and incapacitates Swansea to gain access to the utility room and its broken vent shaft into the medical bay. Jimmy discovers the working cryo-pod and falsely assumes Swansea hid it for himself. Jimmy convinces Daisuke to climb the broken shaft. The shaft severely wounds him in the process, but he is able to enter the medical bay and open the door. Shortly after, Anya is revealed to have committed suicide by overdosing on the remaining medication.

Following Daisuke's near-fatal injuries, Jimmy attempts to treat him by pouring mouthwash on his wounds, even though Anya had discouraged this idea previously. As it proves futile, Swansea kills him to spare him any further agony. This was the last straw for Swansea, who, fed up with Jimmy's actions, charged at him with the utility axe in an attempt to kill him (whether or not this happened in reality and not just in Jimmy's self-assured and deluded mind is left ambiguous). Jimmy runs and hides himself in the cock pit, retrieving the gun. Ultimately, Jimmy incapacitates Swansea and ties him up. Before his execution, Swansea told a defeated Jimmy what a miserable man he had become while acknowledging his own flaws. Jimmy refused to listen, still insisting he would fix everything before shooting Swansea in the head. Later, falling further into insanity, Jimmy sits all the corpses of the dead crew in the dining room and places Curly on the table, cutting a slice of Curly's leg for himself and the dead crewmates. He eats a piece of the leg and force-feeds a piece to Curly, all while imagining a mock birthday celebration.

Soon, Jimmy began suffering from hallucinations he couldn't distinguish from reality, imagining monstrous versions of Polle, the Pony Express mascot, hearing Curly's voice still speaking to him and appearing in his mind, and walking through mazes. This also included visions of Daisuke and Anya's pregnancy, all a result of his guilty conscience calling back to the events of the past few days, and especially urgent insistence that he "take responsibility" for his actions, though he still deflected them all by continuing to delude himself. In a final moment of comparative clarity, he decided to place his former captain in a cryogenic pod, hoping he might have a chance to be saved, and assured Curly one last time that he had fixed everything before taking his own life with the gun.

Some fans have expressed uncertainty about whether Jimmy ate his slice of Curly's leg. However, he evidently did, as the leg is clearly absent from Jimmy's plate in the final scene. According to the game developer Wrong Organ, Jimmy's favorite Pokémon is Mega Rayquaza.[1] Jimmy was named after Lana Del Rey’s “A&W." Many lyrics in the song discuss rape culture and explicitly use his name.[1] The name James means “he who supplants," which describes an individual that may forcefully take a position belonging to another, symbolizing his superseding role as the de facto captain after Curly. A strange doodle of Jimmy called 'Yimpy' can be found on the wall in the medical office. It is a drawing of his face close up on a sticky note. Looking at the sticky note for ten seconds unlocks an achievement. Jimmy's line about cartoon horses wasn't intended to reference Bronies. It was directed at Polle, and the development team didn't make the connection until the game came out.[1] At first, the player was meant to question whether they were playing as Jimmy or Curly more often, but in development, that idea quickly proved to be more frustrating and confusing than compelling. Because of this, it was disregarded.[2] Jimmy was a difficult character to design because he was meant to remain an “everyman” to a degree while still having enough of a strong visual character concept to fit in with the rest of the cast.[2]

One year, Jimmy and the rest of Curly's friends made him a birthday cake out of chocolate and caramel whey protein powder, which collapsed under its weight and tasted like a chalkboard. It became one of Curly’s fondest birthday memories.[2] Jimmy was the one who broke the Polle Statue in the lobby. Swansea, drunk off mouthwash, thought it was hilarious.[3] Jimmy is into weightlifting, as he can't afford other hobbies.[3] Ironically, it's the only hobby he shares with Curly. Jimmy has become despised among fans so much that his page on the Mouthwashing Wiki is often subjected to vandalism. This has reached a point to where proper mention of his name is a major taboo among fans, as they find it preferable to use false, mocking aliases (i.e Jimbo), and commenting "I'm sorry you had to draw Jimmy" on Mouthwashing fanart. Due to his highly detestable nature, an achievement called 'The Good Ending' can be unlocked should the player allow Jimmy to be killed by Swansea 10 times during the maze sequence. From what can be seen on Jimmy's ID card, fans have speculated that his last name could be Zare.