Regarding the drug at the center of this one-shot, I'd say it's pretty clear it was not intended to be a drug, as in the stand-in for any one drug, as much as the drug, the ur-drug that is thematically tied to spiralling, self-destruction, addiction, despair and so on and so forth.
As people have pointed out, the drug is not the focus of the story as much as the two protagonists are-- their lives, the hardships they face.
The good drug-conscious folks of the forum need not be disappointed, the author wasn't really making any grand statement about drugs.
Now, the issue is it's hard to see if the author was trying to make any point. The drug was not the point nor, I think, is the drug the crime implied by the anthology theme. The crime is most probably the murder (duh).
Thirty pages are indeed too few to go over, in any serious depth, such themes as suicidal urges and ideation, codependency, murder-suicide; the sex feels off, as has been pointed out (kudos to the author on that!), but it also feels somewhat out-of-place (not to the point of making this "just porn", still); it's hard for a piece like this to outrun the misery porn allegations.
Those who see a representation of BPD in this are probably right. Problem is, it's BPD rep in a pretty middle-of-the-road work.
last edited at Jul 7, 2026 5:21AM
