When I was a child, I went through a Digimon phase. One night me my brother were outside jumping on a trampoline or something and we saw some little floating lights swirling around us. There seemed to be more and more of them and I got terrified cause I thought I was getting sent to the Digimon realm or something, so he and I ran away screaming. So that was my first experience with fireflies.
I don’t know what the right term for it is, but internet media-styled horror(think analog horror and creepypastas) really freaked me out until recently. I can’t really dissect the why, but stuff like that did a good job messing up my brain chemicals and inducing a kind of lingering terror and paranoia.
Learning about what the CIA, FBI, NATO, and other similar western orgs do to minorities and people of the global south did a lot to help me overcome those weird fears. When I think about it, the idea that a malevolent entity possessing a game cartridge wouldn’t immediately be sniffed out and weaponized by imperial powers breaks the immersion of these stories for me
Yeah if magic was somehow real you can’t tell me that the CIA wouldn’t be doing shit like in full metal alchemist where the shadow government attempts to do a blood sacrifice that consumes the souls of everyone in the entire country.