Yo, Omicron, why do you write some of the best shit I've ever read? I mean, Christ in Heaven this is perfection. And now I'm gonna write for too long about how much I love it.
First off, I love monster of the week stories. Not even as junk food or anything, I just unironically love them. Something about the brevity to it, either in that there was so much more that could be explored now lost forever or that this thing was indeed a simple evil and there's tragedy in that the grand scope of despair it creates is so pointless, even to the thing that caused it. Point is, I get poetic about monster of the week stories, please put me out of my misery at any time.
To me, the landlord felt like the latter. Why create this horror show, turn something from a home into a place people only exist, reduce the ones who live in it to stretched fragmentations of themselves? Who knows? The monster doesn't, not really. It's just that the numbers say so, there's sheafs of paper that say so, clearly it's gonna happen. It's not even incrompehensible, it's just stupid in the same way your calculator is. The grand Azathoth, destroying to destroy, numbers for number's sake.
This is the part where I admit that I'm a bit biased. I despise monsters like that. By which I mean that I love them in stories, because I love seeing them get wrecked. And nothing screams satisfaction like taking a claw hammer to the skull of the literal embodiment of the causal, inhuman cruelty of numbers. You can burn, rip apart, throw into the sea all of the contracts, leases, bill notices you want to. But you never get to feel like you've made it hurt, and that feels unfair for how it has so numbly tortured you. Anyway, I got a surprising amount of catharsis from this.
I also really enjoyed Viridian's voice. Just found it really neat how well you captured someone who is pretty good at monster hunting, but not used to public performance? Like as she was going through she was making some really neat observations about how it all worked, and I was just thinking, "hey, that would probably be pretty cool to explain to the Audience!" Because they're eldritch beings so explaining how bills work and why the metaphor for them are biting people is clearly something she understands and would definitely occupy them while you do the busy work. But she doesn't do anything like that, because this isn't really her wheelhouse. And yet, she's obviously thinking about this stuff and working her actions around it, so the streaming aspect is very clearly involved and not just set dressing. It's pretty cool.
The benign horror of the Saturnine is really beautiful too. Because yeah, you bottled perfectly that feeling where you could do the right thing, but it would feel so awful and you're already so tired. Is it still home if it kills you is such a wonderful line in the context of that feeling. I can't even really explain all of how I feel about it, it's just really good. Finally, a quick blanket statement that I love all the body horror, I eat it all up.
Anyway, I'm gonna go do another exhaustingly rambling bit about Tempus Fugit now, so my apologies for that. If you do get this stuff made into novels, I will be shoveling money at you hand over fist for it, I can't get enough of it.