It always bugs me when there’s a monster who “feeds” on your fear. If a monster is feeding on your fear, your fear is being removed and digested. A lot of people would love to be friends with a demon that could remove their fear. Pennywise should be getting calls every day before job interviews and ballet recitals and airplane rides. He shouldn’t have to work a day in his life.
Doctor Who fights these type of guys like twice a week. And yet i’ve never seen a monster that feeds on joy or hope or appropriately-timed horniness or any of the other emotions we’ve decided are “good”. Now that’d be a scary monster.
A big tall babadook who takes you on rollercoasters and puts on your favorite tv show but you’re not happy about any of it because he’s eating it all before you can feel it.
Usually this is where I’d say “well then its your job to write it into the world” but after the last 15 years of elevated horror monsters being thinly veiled metaphors for “grief” and “depression” and “loss”… we’ve had enough. i refuse to be part of the problem. I’ll put this one in a time capsule and get back to supporting scary monsters who are thinly veiled metaphors for how scary it would be if godzilla was real.