>>714814560I've heard of exposure therapy before. I'm fine watching videos of tarantulas and daddy long legs alike, and I don't find myself scared by house spiders to the point that I've even held them up by their strings and played around with them before. It's just particularly their depiction in certain video games that freaks me out, strangely enough. I think it's since they're often gigantized and their features and sounds are exaggerated. Which video game spiders garner a reaction from me seems arbitrary, and I can't pinpoint any common features. I have no reaction to the spiders from Minecraft, Terraria, Don't Starve, Hollow Knight and Limbo, but the Witcher 3's arachnomorphs, the black headcrabs from Half Life 2, Silent Hill 2's creepers, the EDF spiders, and especially Skyrim's spiders terrify me. I can handle mantis, radscorpions and mirelurks in Fallout, but radroaches, bloatflies and giant ants I get unnerved by. Again, I'm generally less scared of their real-life counterparts, but the way they're imagined in games can seriously set me off.
>>714815318It's hard to explain, there's just something about how they move around on the ground. The way all 8 of their legs rapidly spasm in sequence, making a low rumbling noise as they skitter around, it evokes a deep sense of disgust and panic in me. I hate how they leap forward suddenly to bite, their pedipalps fluttering about as they do so, and the way their limbs fall completely limp or curl inward as they die. It's just the worst.