I've always been attached to characters like Slushie. The serious, bratty, cute pouty kind who think too highly of themselves. I love the idea of watching them get humbled! Of course, the characters I liked usually relied a lot on headcanons to actually end up in the kinds of situations I wanted for them. Most ships I like are FARRR from canon, and as much as I love Death Note and as gay as it may be to me, it's not actually meant to be gay. Light isn't meant to be wearing a bunny costume because life is actually super cruel, and L/Light/Misa as a ship relies on ignoring certain aspects of canon to make it work the way I want it to.

Slushie on the other hand... 🤭

When I got into oneway.exe I had ZERO expectations! I'm not a gamer and I've never been so early into anything that didn't have a fandom before. The horror seemed cool and I wanted to uncover the #LORE. Something about the tiny bit of personality we got to see from Slushie in the demo and ARG really appealed to me. So serious and grumpy. Even more because we knew he was the murderer (not really a spoiler :p) before we even got to learn who he was at all. What an interesting guy. He skins a girl alive, yet here he is acting like a brat in the source code of a website.

I thought I was losing my mind when it looked like Emci was implying he's a brat! For a while, I thought shipping Trio8 together was just a cute silly fandom thing of mine, my fangirl habits slipping through as usual. But then the game came out, and suddenly I felt a whole lot more validated than I usually ever am. They seemed to be flirting CONSTANTLY!!! And the dynamics very quickly made it clear that Slushie is, and always will be, canonically a huge fucking brat who longs to be tamed. And is.

It's established in canon, referenced in canon, explicitly stated in canon, and Kitty and Emci do NOT make it subtle. Slushie acts that way on purpose because he wants a reaction, and he always gets one!!! It's CRAZY SOMETIMES STILL THAT ITS CANON!! IT'S CRAZY THAT HE GETS CALLED BABY AND KITTY CALLS HERSELF MOMMY AN D EMCI IS DADDY Ok. ok
It's so easy to forget that it can just BE canon instead of something I have to build entirely out of hcs, or it being subtly implied, or "coded" or whatever. Not that there's anything wrong with just hcs, obviouslyyy, but it's refreshing to say the least that a male character actually gets to play this role and the creators aren't afraid or ashamed to commit to it!

I love that a boy gets to be a pathetic stupid bitch bratty omega! I love that a girl gets to be his violent perverted alpha! I love that he gets TWO alphas because he's just that needy and greedy. I love that the game starts off making you see him as this ruthless evil Man who murdered poor Girl, and then you actually meet them and realize how completely wrong that impression is. He's their perfect victim and was always meant to be.

The real tragedy of oneway.exe is that Slushie didn't get to be the one getting skinned alive like they all would've wanted him to be. </3