in the category of personal brain-hacks:
my asshole friend made up an entity that lives in my basement, called the Coal Children, because there’s an old coal cellar down there that hasn’t seen light or living humans in decades. my asshole friend jokes about the Coal Children, how when the steam radiators clank in the winter it’s the Coal Children trying to communicate.
my asshole friend doesn’t understand that now I am terrified of the Coal Children. I have to go through the basement to get out to my car, and if it is night-time I imagine them lurking in the shadows with wide grins and pointy teeth and just wanting to PLAY! (nope nope NOPE)
but.
BUT.
I realized they are only scary because I was picturing them as human children! the other day I started picturing them as baby coal dragons, and suddenly they are adorable and only slightly terrifying, which is much easier to handle than completely terrifying.
they are still called the Coal Children, of course, because first of all, baby dragons are children too, and second of all, don’t you know that dragons are shapeshifters?
also for whatever reason when they were human children, I couldn’t get my mental Babadook to go down and scare them into being polite and not bothering me, but now that they’re dragons they have the Babadook over for tea, so that’s okay.
(yes, my brain is weird. so is yours.)