This is impressive in its originality. For one, sex, there's a lot of it here and it's almost unknown or some magical disney version of it in other works in this series. But it's the cruel grimdark kind right from the start. Implied rape, coercion, maybe even drugging, then there's the main couple who bang casually - not very romantic.
Then there's all the betrayals and twists and like Koshin said:
Interesting but that was not a story, that was a summary.
And it's true, in some ways. It was a summary...
A nice final mission report.
And in some ways I like it for that. The narrative more or less was, "two schemers gloat over fucking over their hated enemies after fucking". It could be a pitch for a slow-burn drama but as it is now it's a nice vertical slice where we can imagine how further the rabbit hole goes. How each of these people schemed, the minutae of their plans and what came before and after. And I think inviting that imagination makes this work extremely more interesting than other stories which didn't feel like a world with a cast.
This one still mostly feels like cardboard cut-outs, but it doesn't remove the possibility of depth. It's not a very good example of what you CAN do in an anthology work but damn if it isn't a strong batter hit.
