#I’d like to think I’ve demonstrated enough that I am against all the phobias and isms we deal with

[eowynstwin]

I don’t really know how to say this correctly, so I’m just gonna say it honestly, please don’t come into my inbox telling me how bad of a person the OP is of any given post that I’ve reblogged. I understand the need to be aware of what kind of people are on this site and what risk they pose to other bloggers, really I do, but I do not like the fact in the SLIGHTEST that every single person here is being surveilled for their politics—are subject to fucking algorithms via tumblr savior/xkit/etc monitoring the types of posts they make or reblog. That does not sit well with me in the slightest, no matter what kind of people are being surveilled.

Nor am I particularly comfortable with people surveilling MY blog in case I misstep. I do not vet every single OP of every single post I reblog because I am not fucking crazy. I certainly do not reblog things from people I already know have shown their ass, but I do not want you to come into my inbox tattling on people I don’t know. If you really believe ACAB, stop fucking acting like cops.

[tardistimes]

Aractune

Summary: The Master's companion is scared of spiders. How could he possibly abuse that knowledge?

Series: The Planets Part 3 | Part 2 | Part 1

Word Count: 5194

N.B.  Okay, I know some people will be put off by the mention of spiders in the description (I would be, as I have a spider phobia) but I promise I use minimal descriptions and their appearances are intended to be funny not scary!

AO3 link here.

“You’ll like this one.” The Master promised, opening the door for her. “Zenus. It’s a level five planet, like Earth. Its main inhabitants built their civilisations from the treetops, using a series of interconnected bridges to travel between the forests.”

“Err, I don’t think so,” Ana said, glancing outside at the arid landscape before them. There wasn’t a single tree in sight.

Giving her an innocent look after he peeked out the doors – immediately making Ana suspicious – he declared, “How strange. The TARDIS must have brought us here for some reason. Well, it would be a shame to come all this way and not have a look around. Shall we?”

Reluctantly following him outside, Ana took in their surroundings. The sky overhead was a reddish hue, a stark contrast to the greenish-black soil covering the majority of the landscape before them. It was only broken up by the odd jagged rock protruding from the dirt or a short plant of some variety, which resembled a black cactus.

“Where are we?” She asked once she had seen enough. It really was a desolate looking place, especially when she had been prepared for a luscious forest full of treetop houses.

“Hang on, I’ll check.” The Master said, turning to go look at the console.

“You mean you don’t just know?” Ana teased, taking a chance. “Wow. If the Doctor was here, she’d probably eat a bit of soil and immediately know where we are, what week it is and where the nearest doughnut shop is.”

She didn’t often try to compare him to the Doctor, knowing their relationship was a sensitive subject, and Ana immediately bit down on her lip after making the remark as she waited nervously for his response.

The Master glared over his shoulder at her, resolutely shutting the TARDIS door before stalking back to her side. “Fine.”

He drew in a deep breath. “Aractune.”

“No doughnut shop?” Ana asked, glancing at him out the corner of her eye.

“No. And I don’t need to eat dirt to figure that out.” The Master replied dryly.

“Good,” she smiled, “to be honest, I always found that kinda gross.”

He grinned back. His smiles were always so sharp, but Ana found them increasingly endearing. Especially as he moved closer to weave their fingers together. “Come on, pet. Let’s see what’s around.”

“Doesn’t look like much of anything.” She pointed out. There were no roads or trails to suggest a civilisation of any kind. The landscape, to her, looked too barren to support any kind of life, but, as the Master said, the TARDIS wouldn’t take them there for no reason.

The Master swung their hands between them as they walked, making her laugh. He was only doing it as a joke; even without an audience, he loved to be dramatic. Ana still enjoyed the contact though. Usually, his touches were possessive, it made a nice change when they could be light-hearted like this.

“So, what do you know about Aractune?” She asked as they walked along. They were getting further away from the TARDIS, currently disguised as a large boulder, but no matter how far they walked there were no signs of people.

“Level two planet,” he replied, “so not much chaos to create here. I do seem to recall though,” the Master drawled, “I mean, I’m not the Doctor so I’m not sure how accurate this is…”

Ana rolled her eyes. She should have known he wouldn’t let the matter go.

“…but Aractune is known for a nightly meteor shower which, when viewed through the planet’s atmosphere, is meant to be quite spectacular. To a human, anyway. Can’t imagine it would hold much interest to me.” He sniffed.

“We can leave if you don’t want to be here.” Ana said. “We were meant to go to Zenus anyway.”

“Yes, us Time Lords always taking you to the wrong places.” He said lightly.

“This is the only time you’ve ever done that.” Ana pointed out. “And you said that was the TARDIS’s fault, not yours.”

“It is.” The Master agreed.

“There you go then. The Doctor was always taking us to the wrong place,” she laughed, perhaps overexaggerating a little but it wasn’t a lie, “did I ever tell you about the time she promised to take me home and we ended up on an iceberg? No? Well, I’ve made my point. You’re obviously the superior pilot.”

His grin grew and he preened under her compliment. The Master was such a vain creature, which she never failed to find hilarious.

“So we’re staying for the meteor shower?” Ana asked. “I guess we can only see it at nightfall? How long do we have to wait?”

“The days are quite short here. I’d say we only have to wait half an hour before sunset.”

“Great.”

Glancing around, she was unsurprised to see there was still little to do to pass the time.

“What do we do until then?”

Reaching into his pocket, which Ana had learned were bigger on the inside a while ago, he pulled out a blanket and unfurled it on the floor.

“Do you just carry that with you all the time?” She asked sceptically. That didn’t sound like something the Master would waste space on.

“Never know when you might need a blanket.” He told her.

She still didn’t believe him but took a seat beside him on the ground. He laid back after he was sure she was comfortable and, as always, she followed him. Pointing up at the sky, he told her more about the planet, some of the reptilian-like animals which had begun to develop over the past million years, how the environment would develop over subsequent millennia until it was suitable to maintain intelligent life; trying to show off with his knowledge and dispel any comparison with the Doctor.

As he started to tell her about the natural satellites in orbit, the reddish sky darkened into a deep purple before fading into black. The stars lit up the night sky, softly illuminating the landscape around them. It was very dark once the sun set on the planet and, feeling slightly exposed, Ana shuffled closer to the Master where she felt safer.

“Are you warm enough?” He asked.

While the temperatures had dropped with the departing sun, she was fine beside him. “No.”

“Scared?” He teased next.

“No.” Ana intoned.

He stretched his arm out and, taking the invitation, Ana rolled into his side. “Silly human.” The Master mumbled into her hair, pulling her closer with his free hand.

The meteors began to shoot across the night sky, pulling a delighted cry from Ana as she saw them. The sparks from their trails flared brightly, illuminating the entire sky above them with flashes of warm yellow. They swirled into the dusty atmosphere, mixing into explosions of bright oranges and fiery reds.

The Master grinned smugly as Ana exclaimed how beautiful it was – his human was so easy to please.

She became entirely entranced with the display as it continued to unfold overhead, so Ana barely heard the rustling that first sounded behind her. When it came again, however, suddenly closer, she jumped. Pressing her hands to the Master’s chest, she pushed herself up and squinted through the shadows surrounding them.

“What was that?” Ana asked nervously.

“What was what?” The Master replied lazily, idly running his fingers through the ends of her hair.

Shaking her head, sure she was imagining it, Ana settled back against him.

“Okay, no. Do you not hear that?” She said a minute later, sitting upright as the noise came again.

“It’s just the wind.” He dismissed, still laying down. “Now pay attention to the meteor shower. You see those meteors at the end? In about ten thousand years they will finally come close enough to the planet to be pulled in by its orbit. Where they crash will become the first major body of water, which will advance the development of intelligent life. As for the other meteors, they crash five million years from now and destroy the civilisation which ultimately forms here. Absolute devastation, we really should visit…”

“Master!” Ana exclaimed. Whatever caused the noise was close enough now for her to pinpoint it, coming from her left.

Her head turned just in time to see the spindly creature approach, its numerous legs slowly breaking through the shadows as it neared them and Ana realised with a stab of terror, “SPIDER!”

It was nearly the size of a basketball and scurried towards her. With a cry, she rolled over the Master’s torso until she was firmly behind him, fully prepared to use him as a human (alien, she corrected) shield.

Instead of complaining about the indignity of her actions, the Master calmly pulled the TCE from his pocket and killed the creature approaching them.

“Honestly,” he tusked, once it was taken care of, “that is not a spider. We’re not on Earth, darling. Look.”

Reaching forward to pluck up the miniature, he held it close to Ana’s face, sighing when she immediately scampered away.

“Don’t put it near me!” She yelled.

“Pet, I’m just trying to demonstrate that it only has seven legs. Not eight.”

Refusing to look, Ana declared, “I don’t care, it still scared the crap out of me. Sneaking up on us like that. Hang on a minute,” she said, a shudder running down her spine, “are there more of those?”

“Yes. At this moment in time, they’re the dominant life form on the planet.”

Hurrying back to his side, Ana grabbed his arm (the one not holding the spider-like creature) and held him tightly. “Get me the hell out of here.”

The Master raised an eyebrow at her. “It’s fine. As I just demonstrated,” he flicked the figurine away from them, “I am more than capable of protecting us. Besides, they’re not venomous. Not to humans anyway. As far as I know.”

Ana shot him an unimpressed look. “I am not sitting out here with those things all around us.”

“But love, the meteor shower.”

“No.” She insisted, standing up and crossing her arms.

The Master, unable to remember a time he had seen Ana ever so resolute, slowly stood. Carefully folding the blanket while she tapped her foot impatiently, he only led her back to the TARDIS once it was properly tucked back inside his pocket. Offering her his arm, she quickly took it and stayed pressed to his side the entire way back.

Holding the door open for her, Ana hastened inside the TARDIS – determined to have a scolding hot shower in the hopes it would kill the feeling of invisible spiders crawling over her skin. She always felt that way after an encounter.

The Master watched her go, waiting for her to leave the console room before allowing a mischievous smile to cross his face.

________________________________________________________________

Every few weeks, the Master returned Ana home so she could maintain the life she’d left behind to travel with him – making calls to relatives and paying her bills. He was never happy about it, constantly making the argument for her to quit her job, sell her things and move aboard the TARDIS permanently. Every time, Ana pointed out she still had family on Earth and she needed somewhere to stay while visiting them.

Really, she knew it wouldn’t matter much to her if she never saw her family ever again, and she had no friends of note. Getting rid of her home, however, seemed too great a risk. Realistically, despite the developments in their relationship, Ana would always think there was a chance the Master would tire of her one day and leave her somewhere. On the chance he had enough compassion for her left to make that place Earth, it would help to have somewhere to go.

The Master was stood in the console room when she came back from her bedroom – where she had collected a few things she’d need on Earth – scrutinising the screens to try and avoid a goodbye.

With a sigh, Ana crossed over to his side. It seemed her trip home would be like every other. Just once, she wished she could say goodbye for a few days without the Master treating it as though she were saying goodbye forever.

Pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth, Ana said, “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

“Three days.” The Master confirmed grumpily.

She didn’t know why he always made such a performance about this. He had a time machine. He could literally close the door and travel to exactly three days’ time when she was due to come back to the TARDIS, leaving no time to miss her. Instead, he’d go off on his adventures – which he’d tell her all about once she came back, making them sound as enchanting and wonderful as he could – in the hopes it would make her regret her decision to leave and choose to move into the TARDIS permanently.

If she were being honest with herself, Ana did miss the Master and the TARDIS when she left. In an ideal world, she would stay with him for as long as she could before her mortality got in the way. Life was never ideal however and she knew she had to maintain a life beyond him.

“Goodbye, Master,” Ana said, saddened when he wouldn’t meet her gaze.

He started toying with the switches on the console, which she took as her cue to leave.

Sighing again, Ana pulled open the TARDIS door and stepped outside into her living room.

Glancing around, customarily checking to see everything was in place, she paused when she saw an ominously large cobweb in a corner of the room. It spanned about a foot and was worryingly empty.

Leaving the TARDIS door open just to be safe, Ana tentatively stepped closer to it, her eyes jumping around so nothing could sneak up on her. The experience of Aractune was still fresh in her memory and she had no desire to relive any part of that.

Rationally, she knew her fear was irrational. Unfortunately, there was nothing rational about phobias and she’d been scared witless of spiders for as long as she could remember. It was something her family had always teased her for, using it as an obstacle to her following in their footsteps. How could she work in law enforcement, act in a capacity to keep others safe, if she fell prey to irrational fear so easily?

There was nothing around the cobweb and Ana prayed the creature that had created it had since departed her apartment.

Turning around, she clapped a hand to her mouth to contain the squeal which left her lips.

She only muffled part of it, enough escaping to capture the Master’s attention.

“Was that you?” He asked, stepping into her house. Casting a disparaging look at his surroundings, he declared, “Honestly pet, I don’t know what you see in this place. You could fit the entirety of this apartment inside your room in the TARDIS. At least let me find you somewhere suitable on this scrap heap of a planet?”

“Master.” Ana squeaked, jabbing a finger towards the dead, offending creature laid in the middle of her living room floor.

“What is it?” He said, curiously following her gesture. When he saw what had gotten her so excited he groaned. “Not this again. I do not understand your preoccupation with eight-legged animals. We have faced far worse, love. Significantly more dangerous and, in my opinion, much uglier. This,” he condemned, scrutinising the small arachnid before him, “it would barely fill the palm of your hand, let alone mine. And it’s already dead!”

Ana shuddered at the thought of touching it.

“Can you just get rid of it, please?” She implored, trying to keep her tone even and courteous. The last thing she needed was the Master to decide the situation was funny and torment her with the thing even further.

Luckily, after one glimpse at her face, he realised how strongly she wanted it gone and did so without complaint. Only once he’d scooped it up and left the room to dispose of its body, did Ana feel the tension leave her body. That encounter had come too close off the back of the one on Aractune and she prayed, for the sake of her nerves, she wouldn’t encounter any more spiders for quite some time. Or, ideally, ever again.

“All gone.” The Master announced as he came back in.

“Thank you,” Ana said, gushing with gratitude. If he hadn’t just handled its body, she would have thrown herself into his arms to show just how appreciative she was.

“Don’t mention it.” He grinned. “Now, about this flat of yours. I really do think you can do better. Why don’t I…”

“Master.” Ana moaned. Not again.

He held up his hands. “Very well. I won’t mention it. You stay here, in your adorable little hovel. I just hope, for your sake, that you don’t have an infestation of those silly little creatures.” The Master said idly. “Hey, do you remember that woman who was killed by those giant spiders in her apartment when we first met? I couldn’t say so at the time – given the part, I was playing – but that was quite funny, wasn’t it?”

Ana felt all the colour leave her face.

Her eyes bounced around the flat and suddenly her body was tense again.

That sneaky bastard.

Shooting him a glare, Ana stalked past him back into the TARDIS.

“Oh, are you not staying? How delightful, darling.” He grinned. “Now, how about we try and get to Zenus this time. I really do think you’ll enjoy it.”

________________________________________________________________

Ana had been trying to shower away the grime from their latest adventure when she caught sight of the first black leg emerging from the drain. With a shriek, she leapt out of the cubicle, hollering for help.

Grabbing the closest towel, Ana wrapped it around herself just in time for the Master to burst through the door to come to her rescue. If she had thought about it rationally, she might have questioned how he had responded so quickly – given he had last been seen in the console room and, no matter how much the TARDIS aided him by rearranging the corridors, he shouldn’t have been able to get to her so fast.

Instead, she watched him kill the spider and flush it down the toilet, before hurrying to his side to thank him. He pulled her into a hug, grateful for all the skin bared to him by the towel she wore, as he ran his hands along her arms before pulling her flush to his chest.

Once her heart had slowed down to its normal rate, Ana pulled back and switched off the water.

“Your clothes are all damp.” She apologised when she returned to his side.

“Don’t worry about it. I have plenty more where these come from.” He assured, pushing the hair out of her face. “Besides, all in the line of duty. I can’t let those pesky things get to my human now, can I?”

His hand trailed down her face to brush over her bottom lip and he delighted as Ana immediately gave into temptation and leaned in to initiate a passionate kiss, the leftover adrenaline from her encounter making their embrace increasingly desperate.  

________________________________________________________________

“How do spiders keep getting aboard?” Ana lamented, her legs pulled up onto the seat of her chair while the Master caught the spider which had just crawled out the kitchen cupboard while she was trying to get some cereal for breakfast. “We’re in space!”

“We must have picked some up when you wanted to go to Earth yesterday.” The Master explained pointedly. He’d given Ana free reign to choose their destination and, to his chagrin, she wanted to go to Earth to see the launch of Apollo 11. To him, a trip to her sub-par planet to witness the development of primitive technology was a waste of a trip, but she’d found it fascinating.

“The launch probably disrupted a lot of the wildlife and they would have sought shelter.”

The notion that the latest scare was probably her fault, made her apologise for causing such a commotion.

“It’s all right, pet.” He said good-naturedly. “Gave me an opportunity to swoop in and rescue you.”

He waggled his eyebrows at her, making Ana laugh.

“My hero.” She grinned, going along with the joke.

At least he was trying to be.

________________________________________________________________

 Picking up her phone, Ana quickly dialled the TARDIS phone.

“Miss me already, love.” The Master answered, picking up after the first ring. There was a sound of machinery clunking in the background, so Ana presumed he was working in the console room.

“Erm, are you busy?” She asked nervously.

“You do miss me, don’t you?” He chuckled deeply. If the hairs on the back of her neck weren’t already standing on end, they would have been after hearing his pleased tone. “Good pet. Why don’t you tell me what it is you need?”

She was too panicked to respond to his flirting and demanded, a bit too sharply, “Can you just come back? Please?”

The line was silent for a moment before the Master slowly agreed.

“All right, Ana. I’ll be right there.”

Pocketing her phone, Ana concentrated on what was before her. As long as she kept her eyes on it, she wouldn’t lose it. The Master would arrive and get rid of it, then she could go back to enjoying her holiday.

In exchange for the night she’d missed on Daviron – when he’d eagerly whisked her away from her vacation early despite their deal – Ana had convinced the Master to let her stay at a resort for the day. They’d come across the place on their latest adventure. The resort was surrounded by natural geothermal springs and sat secluded in the middle of the planet’s woodlands. It had seemed so beautiful and peaceful, that Ana had implored him to spend more time there and, like last time, the Master had secured her a beautiful suite at the resort’s hotel where she would stay overnight.

Her time there had been blissfully relaxing. Right up until the spider before her emerged. It was the biggest she’d seen since Sheffield and Ana was desperate to get away from it, however, it was between her and the door, leaving little room for her to escape without coming into contact with it.

The sound of the TARDIS landing was the most wonderful noise in the universe Ana decided, as it landed in her bedroom. Taking up space beside her wardrobe, it disguised itself as an additional door.

Stepping outside, the Master raised his hands in question.

Jerking her head towards the problem, she watched as he amusedly realised what he had been summoned for.

“Darling, if you missed me all you needed to do was call. You don’t need to orchestrate these things to justify it.” He jested, raking his eyes up and down the length of her body. “You know I’d never leave you lonely.”

“Master, please.” Ana pleaded, returning her eyes to the oversized bug so it couldn’t disappear on her. She’d spend the night dreading its reappearance.

With all the airs of a long-suffering man, the Master sighed as he withdrew his TCE and killed yet another creature which had offended his human.

Turning on her heel, Ana threw her arms around him and hugged him desperately.

“I knew you’d missed me.” He crowed into her hair, reeling her close.

Shivering slightly, she tried to will herself to relax. It was gone, the Master had dealt with it and she was perfectly safe.

The Master sensed her distress and hugged her more gently, with a firm hand stroking her back to calm her. “It’s all gone now, Ana.” He promised. “You can get back to your holiday now.”

She grimaced at the thought – no longer feeling safe alone in the room it had emerged in – and, after a moment, the Master added, “Unless you want to come back to the TARDIS early?”

Nodding into his shoulder, Ana was unable to see the delight on his face.

Scooping her up, the Master hastened her into the TARDIS without a backward glance.

________________________________________________________________

In hindsight, Ana should have realised what the Master was doing long before she did. As it happened, she only found out when she caught him in the act. The squirming spider was trapped between his fingers by one of its legs, about to go on Ana’s bed. 

Slamming the door behind her, the Master froze before he could let it go. 

Glancing over his shoulder, he gave her a guilty grin. “Pet. I thought you were going for a swim?”

“I forgot my towel,” Ana explained dryly, pointing to the item she had left slung over a chair. 

“We have spares in the lockers beside the pool.” He told her, his tone casual as the spider continued its struggle against his grip. 

Ana arched a brow. “I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t know that or I wouldn’t have come back so soon.” She drawled. “Just what exactly are you doing with that spider?”

“I was removing it.”

She hummed sceptically. “What were you doing in here to begin with?”

As the Master of lies, he spun her a pretty story about wanting to do something romantic by leaving a gift on her bed – he even had a box in his pocket to produce as part of the charade, something he often kept on him in case he attracted his human’s ire and needed a distraction. The lie may have worked on her – it was, she begrudgingly conceded, convincingly told – if, while he spoke, her memory hadn’t produced all those times she had been terrorised by one of those eight-legged creatures, with the Master always conveniently placed to come to her rescue. Taking her to Aractune, even though he knew from their first meeting she was terrified of spiders (or in Aractune’s case, spider-like creatures). The one in her apartment, in the shower, in the TARDIS’s kitchen, in her hotel suite, and now one on her pillow. Undoubtedly he would have waited just around the corner, waiting for her screech of terror before dashing in to rescue her. 

“If you want me to be your damsel in distress,” Ana said acidly, once he was finished telling his fabrications, “perhaps you could try something different next time? Maybe pay someone to dangle me off a building or accidentally drop me into shark-infested waters? This act with the spiders is starting to wear a bit thin. How about some real jeopardy?”

“Pet, I just told you…”

“Treating me like an idiot isn’t going to win me over, you know.” She bit back. Marching over to her bedroom door, she yanked it open and gestured outside. “Take your eight-legged friend with you on your way out.”

“This is my TARDIS, Ana. I’ll go where I please.” He stated, immediately rebelling. 

“Fine. You can take me home then. At least I know you haven’t had time to sneak anything into my house just to scare me back to you. Take me home.”

The Master crushed the spider in his hand, annoyed with its wriggling, and Ana fought not to grimace. She must have failed as, upon catching sight of her face, his ire magnified. 

“Why don’t you get the Doctor to take you home if you’re so disgusted?”

Ana was taken aback. “The Doctor? What has she got to do with anything?” 

“I travelled with you all, pet.” The Master reminded. “I saw you all together. The way your eyes used to light up whenever she would swoop in to rescue you from danger – which, for the record, she also used to put you in. Never did you blame her for that, instead you would all simper and praise her intelligence, her bravery. Your precious Doctor. I’m sure if she had done this, you would have found it delightful!” He yelled, the bitterness dripping so heavily from his words, Ana could feel it wash over her from the other side of the room. 

Her bewilderment grew. “That’s why you did this? You wanted an excuse to rescue me so you could be more like the Doctor.”

Out of habit, he rejoined, “I am nothing like the Doctor!”

“I know!” Ana yelled back. When his face fell, she added softly, “That’s why I chose you.”

Walking closer, still mindful of his hand and the crushed remains of the insect smeared over his palm, Ana looked at him. “When I was with the fam and I got into danger, there was always a part of me that thought they wouldn’t miss me if I was gone. I was never really a part of their family, and part of me wondered if sometimes they wouldn’t like to get rid of me. That, given the opportunity of me being in danger, they would just leave me there. That’s why I was so happy when O started to come with us because, with you there, I knew there was always someone who would notice if I wasn’t there, who would push to get me back whatever the risk. That’s why I’m with you now. You might get me into ridiculously dangerous situations, but I know you’ll always try to rescue me from them.”

“Always.” The Master confirmed without hesitation. 

Ana believed him. While she knew there was a chance the Master might get sick of her one day and send her packing, she was confident he would never leave her to fall victim to one of his messes. She believed he cared for her enough to never wish her physical harm. If she was in danger, he would rescue her. There was no doubt in her mind. And she certainly didn’t need any convincing to stay with him – she had never regretted her choice to leave the Doctor for the Master and couldn’t imagine there would ever be a time that she would. 

“You don’t need to play pretend being the hero, Master. There’s nothing for you to live up to. I’m happy where I am.” Ana said. “No more spiders, okay?

“No more spiders.” He confirmed. Raising his hands, ready to tug her into a kiss, he pouted when Ana hastily backed away. 

“Okay, don’t get me wrong. I’d love to kiss you, really I would. But you’ve got to wash that hand first, I’m not getting spider guts in my hair.”

His dour expression was replaced with a grin as he realised her true motive for pulling away. Pointing a finger at her, he said sternly, “Don’t go anywhere.”

The Master hastened into her bathroom to do as his pet desired, Ana giggling as she watched him run off, so eager to return for his kiss. 

“I’m still mad about you planting all those spiders though.” She called after him. 

“I know.” He replied sulkily, prompting her to laugh again. “I’ll make it up to you.”

My hero, she thought wryly.

Note: That second experience is based on something that happened to me when a relative, who had been house sitting for us, thought it would be funny to leave a dead spider in the middle of my bedroom floor for when I got home because they know how much I hate spiders. Suffice to say, I didn't find it funny! 

Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this and no one found the spiders creepy! I know this story doesn't progress the series much, I just thought it was a funny idea as I'd already set up that Ana hates spiders in Vabivis. Let me know your thoughts!

N.B. I've now made a Discord group for Master fans (and other Dhawan characters like Orlo, Davos etc). If you're interested in joining, message me for the link! 

[bigskydreaming]

So, okay. The posts about how psychodrama and exposure therapy have been used effectively to treat PTSD. Sigh. Oh boy. Okay, see, because the thing is they’re not wrong, on a technical level. But they’ve been so completely stripped of context ie the specific HOW and in WHAT WAYS those are ACTUALLY deemed helpful rather than perpetuating self-harm - as to be quite misleading, IMO.

Disclaimer that I am not a licensed therapist, and I do not claim to be. I am just a survivor whose done a crapton of coping in various ways in my life, and researched just about every school of thought there is on these subjects, as well as interacted with a plethora of other survivors of all types in a variety of settings like support groups, one on one conversations, etc. Do with the following whatever you want. I’m not sourcing this because none of it stems from a singular source other than the accumulation of all the reading and talking with professionals and other survivors and own experiences and whatnot. Evaluate what I’ve put in this posts on its own merits, take away what seems worth following up on, even if just as a starting place for your own research, dismiss it entirely because of my lack of a PhD, whatever. Entirely up to you. I’m merely writing it down because its in my head either way. I’m happy to discuss what I have to say here, but I’m not gonna engage with potshots at my credibility that are largely focused on semantics or just my lack of credentials. I don’t have the time or the patience for that, so don’t be surprised if I just ignore that shit. Anyway. Moving on: 

There are many, many different types of trauma, and even trauma stemming from abuse or rape can be so different in so many key respects, that what is helpful for one person can absolutely be the exact opposite for another. This is why I generally stay away from “I write dark smut because its my coping mechanism” arguments - I have enough trouble getting people to argue my actual points when there’s barely any room for misinterpretation....I have a migraine already at the thought of how people will spin my stance on this out of context.

But the thing is....given the varying degrees and types and contexts and dynamics and effects different instances of abuse and rape have on individuals....I’ve never and I never will argue that there is zero validity to the idea that anyone has ever been helped to work through their traumas by writing certain things. There’s just no way I, or anyone, is qualified to make that claim. BUT, the flip side of that coin is it is equally unilaterally impossible AND IRRESPONSIBLE, IMO, to blithely trot out the idea that writing and reading dark fiction as a coping mechanism is universally harmless and most likely to result in positive growth rather than negative stagnation or even backsliding into more active states of trauma.

So take something like roleplaying and psychodrama as tools for helping a survivor deal with their trauma....absolutely there’s a place for that. BUT whether or not it will likely be to a person’s benefit and healing rather than counter-productively reinforcing negative mindsets or behaviors - depends almost ENTIRELY on WHAT a therapist’s aims are in using psychodrama as one of their tools. What explicitly they think it has to contribute towards a patient’s specific situation and issues.

Because the thing is, psychodrama is essentially a tool for INSIGHT. Nothing more, nothing less. It essentially has a patient roleplay either themselves in a recreation of a past traumatic event or time period, but in a controlled setting and with someone to guide them through it....or in other instances, has the patient roleplay themselves in the role of their abuser or attacker. 

Its ultimately a way of putting someone in their own shoes during a prior event, or the shoes of someone else present for it or involved in it....and viewing the event with fresh eyes, from new angles, given that they now have the distance and the awareness of its lack of ‘realness’ to focus not just on their fear or panic of the time, but going through the motions of the event while now able to spare attention and focus for what was happening OUTSIDE their tunnel-visioned panic of the time, or what might have been going through the heads of the other people involved.

So again, as a tool for insight and information gathering or paradigm-breaking, it has a wide range of potential applications. It absolutely can and does help a number of people heal in a number of ways. Using psychodrama and roleplaying recreations of past events and their aftermath can help someone understand why they reacted in certain ways, why they developed certain behaviors or tendencies in its aftermath or in their attempts to recover. It can be used to help demonstrate to a survivor that they’re being too hard on themselves, expose the lie of ‘if only I’d done this instead, everything could have gone differently’ that many survivors use to punish themselves. 

It can be used with survivors who are struggling to understand why and how someone could do this to them, or especially with survivors of abuse who worry about the possibility of becoming just like their abuser, continuing a cycle of abuse and harm because of how they’ve internalized what was done to them, or attempted to justify it over the years. 

Using these techniques and methodologies can help put a survivor in the driver’s seat of a recreation, essentially, have them roleplay their own attacker, with an impartial professional available to act as a soundingboard and fact checker for their own decision-making process throughout the recreation - ie periodically asking “now are you saying you’d do that next because its what YOU want to do in that role, or because its what you assume your abuser would want to do there?” And thus it can help reassure an abuse survivor that ultimately, they just don’t think the way their abuser likely did, and despite their fears, their thought processes do not lend themselves towards the chain of actions and reactions that would likely result in perpetrating certain abusive behaviors themselves.

HOWEVER.

The caveat that I pretty much never see in posts citing the use of these techniques in healing from trauma, is that for every potential application, there’s another instance or way in which these techniques have no value, and in fact can cause harm. For instance, not every survivor struggles with why someone would do to them what they did, what they must have been thinking to hurt them in this way. Some survivors have simply no desire to wonder what was going through their attacker’s head...it means nothing to them, and offers nothing to help them with what’s in their own heads. So as a tool for information gathering or discovering new angles to a past trauma, its meaningless at best.

Similarly, these kinds of ideas or techniques attempted without an experienced and impartial observer present for the recreations can do just as much harm as they have potential to help. For instance, if someone has struggled with self-blame ever since a traumatic event, convinced themselves that it might be their own fault, because they did or didn’t do certain things....these kinds of recreations and roleplaying present a very tricky tightrope to walk. 

If the survivor ISN’T able to fully make the distinction between their panic, adrenaline fueled thoughts and reactions of the time, and their own more capable and clinical view of the recreated scene due to the safety and comfort of their current danger-free environment...then its entirely possible, and likely, to come up with ideas or alternative actions or choices that theoretically could have allowed them to manipulate the situation towards a less traumatizing conclusion, or perhaps allowed them to avoid it happening at all. 

Thus, by coming to these ‘conclusions’ via the psychodrama role-playing, a survivor has actually given their brains MORE ammunition to use against them when thinking that its their own fault their trauma happened, because they did x instead of these now clearly defined alternative choices they’ve thought up....and failed to healthily internalize as things they could not reasonably expect themselves to have thought of at the time.

See what I mean?

Similarly, exposure therapy is....oof. Yikes. I have a lot of thoughts about its validity as a tool for helping with PTSD and associated trauma responses and aftermath. I’m perfectly aware that they’ve had enormous success with using virtual reality type programs to treat soldiers’ PTSD in a variety of ways.

The thing is though, prior to the viability of such technology, exposure therapy has almost unilaterally been used to treat ANXIETY disorders, specifically. Such as with people who experience various phobias.

Because....anxiety is largely irrational/instinctive in these types of things. They’re a person undergoing a panic response to varying degrees, in response to a threat or danger that’s largely imagined....based either on memories triggered by a similarity in their environs to the setting of a past trauma, or by hypothetical extrapolations off of various stimuli, or sometimes, just completely irrational lines of thinking.

So essentially, the varying applications of exposure therapy as a method of treatment for anxiety disorders specifically....is that by inducing an encounter with the root fear of the patient, but in a controlled environment where they’re in no possible danger, a therapist can theoretically enhance a patient’s awareness of the irrationality of their fears. They can empirically guide a patient through an understanding of how their mind is playing tricks on them and imagining or embellishing threats that objectively are not a possibility at the moment. And from there, help a patient build a mental toolbox of thoughts and thought processes they can pull out and use as tools when their anxieties threaten to overwhelm them...and they need a way to establish an anchor to objective reality and separate imagined threat from real surroundings....to detect and affirm when something is just their mind playing tricks on them again.

The problem here lies in the fact that this is largely only useful in helping ground people in the reality of things not usually being the threat or danger they imagine them to be. But what exposure therapy can NOT do, is ‘expose’ a survivor to a reconstruction of the conditions of their past trauma, or a ‘scene’ that plays out similarly to the way their trauma did....and reassure them there’s nothing to be afraid of there, because their fears and anxiety in the scene being recreated....WERE VERY MUCH REAL AND VALID.

Now, one possible use of exposure therapy in terms of singular event-born PTSD....is in helping survivors deal with specific TRIGGERS. Using exposure therapy techniques in controlled settings and with professionals to guide survivors through a session of this.....therapists can expose survivors to various stimuli-based triggers, and much as with phobias, a patient can be walked through a more objective awareness and understanding of the fact that although their triggers based on this specific trauma are completely understandable and valid....they are statistically unlikely to act as a forewarning or precursor to ANOTHER instance of their root trauma, and thus do not present a rational fear that a survivor needs the fight or flight response they’ve conditioned themselves to have upon experiencing these triggers. As with phobias, this allows patients to assemble a variety of tools to use to counter the psychological and physiological effects of encountering these specific triggers.

But this isn’t the same thing as treating the fears and anxieties born of worrying something like their trauma might ever happen again, period. Because those fears are categorically...with merit. Survivors are just as vulnerable to abuse and sexual assault as non-survivors, and statistically speaking are more likely to be prone to greater likelihoods of revictimization than non-survivors are of being victimized initially. For a variety of reasons. But basically...exposure therapy can’t help a survivor be reassured there’s nothing to be afraid of....when it can’t guarantee that. Nobody can.

Now, like I said, there’s been considerable success with treating the PTSD of soldiers with VR-based exposure therapy. But again, context is hugely important here. Because war is in and of itself, a viable setting. Soldiers who get PTSD as a result of battlefield trauma, and then go home....well, some of the most common symptoms in their case tend to be flashbacks and an inability to distinguish past from present...essentially, many often find themselves feeling like they’re right back there in the heat of battle where they were initially traumatized. 

So in their cases, in terms of THIS specific manifestation of PTSD....VR exposure therapy has a lot of merit, as using it, therapists can guide their patients back and forth between grounded, objective reality, and virtual reality environments that have been programmed to simulate the wartime environments their PTSD episodes transport them to. In doing so, therapists can help anchor their patients’ awareness in the reality that they are no longer in that wartime environment. That its not real, that future encounters with it are the product of artificial constructs their brains have produced. They can establish clear boundaries between real, and not real, and as described previously, help them assemble tools for objectively breaking down the false reality their PTSD creates for them in the future, break through to the present time and place underneath.

But see how this technique fundamentally can’t work to help anchor triggered survivors through PTSD episodes, more generally speaking, and not just in terms of coping with specific triggerings? A soldier can be made empirically aware that he is not experiencing his root trauma again here and now, because it relies on him being in that wartime environment, and empirically, he is no longer in that wartime environment. A rape survivor, in contrast, can not be made empirically aware they can’t be experiencing another rape or threat of another rape here and now....because there is no empirical proof that what happened once can’t and won’t happen in similar settings possessing the triggers they’re reacting to, or just in any future settings at all.

Which brings me to exposure therapy relying on recreations of past traumas via written fictional scenes.

In theory, all the ingredients are there. A controlled, safe environment - wherever the survivor reading or writing the scene is. The ability to end the scene whenever it gets to be too much - via simply putting down the story or stepping away from writing it. Everything needed to reassure a survivor, while experiencing a simulation of their trauma that might very well still feel viscerally real at times, due to how well or intensely its written....nevertheless, all the ingredients are here for the survivor to ultimately put the necessary distance between the recreation and themselves, and from that distance, more impartially observe that its not real, it can’t hurt them, their trauma is in the past and its behind them.

The problem here is that ironically, there’s TOO MUCH distance between survivors and the recreations. Because of the very nature of fiction as a medium.

See, the thing that can’t be stressed enough, is no matter how well or accurately or in as much detail as you recreate or simulate the environment and conditions of a rape or setting of an abusive event.....rape and abuse, at the end of the day, are not inherently about specific events, interactions, causes and effects.

Rape and abuse are DYNAMICS.

The trauma isn’t born of the physical acts being recreated. The trauma is born of the aggressor having taken something ephemeral from the victim, as well as the physical effects of their actions.

Basically, the problem with using fiction as a recreation of say, someone’s rape.....is that the essential, fundamental element of the rape that MAKES it a rape....is the sexual agency or autonomy the rapist strips their victim of, takes from them. Because rape ultimately isn’t about sex, its about power. Sex is merely the medium by which a rapist TAKES that power. But the crime, the heart of the trauma, the thing that makes it linger long past any physical injuries...is the rapist having used sex to exert power over their victim, make them feel lesser in that moment, and in recollections of that moment.

And this element CAN NOT EXIST in fiction. By virtue of them being fictional characters. They’re not real. There is no power for the fictional rapist to take from their fictional victim....ONLY THE SIMULATION OF IT.

Because when I said fictional recreations ironically have too much distance.....I meant because EVERY consumption of fictional scenes by their very nature....have a degree of distance between the reader or viewer and the fiction. There’s an implicit awareness of this EVERY TIME SOMEONE SITS DOWN TO WATCH TV OR READ A BOOK. These are little rituals we each have done too many times for them to NOT be ingrained on some primal, fundamental level, deep in our lizard brains where the knowledge and awareness that these things can NEVER hurt us, that we are ALWAYS in a safe and controlled environment wholly separate from the things that we might be afraid of.

There is a REASON that military vets treated this way use VR technology for their recreations. That the theory had to wait for the technology to catch up to it before it could be viable in specific respects at all. That its not enough to sit soldiers down in a room and just play war movies over and over until the therapist shuts off the TV and reestablishes the ‘real world.’

Because ultimately, we simply are not capable of willfully divorcing ourselves from reality and fully immersing in a fictional recreation that exists just on TV or on the page. There is always a part of us that remains firmly anchored in reality and cognizant of that...

And as a result, there is only so far we can ever project ourselves into a fictional recreation....which means ultimately, we always are going to hit a wall there. No matter how much we identify with one of the characters, project ourselves into their shoes, there is always a basic awareness that we are not them, and we are not facing the danger they are. 

Which means no matter HOW good or detailed or accurate or emotionally resonant the words on the page are, as they describe each moment of the interaction between aggressor and victim that seems to the reader or writer to otherwise be a perfect recreation of what happened to them....there is simply NO WAY to recreate the one explicitly essential element of that specific trauma....the taking of power, from the one character by the other. Because between the two fictional characters, there is no actual power dynamic, and no actual exchange of power taking place.

Only the APPEARANCE of it.

And as a result, a survivor might very well FEEL helped via this particular coping mechanism, with them handling exposure to such a recreation much better than they did the first handful of times. But is this actually healing, or could it just as easily be termed desensitization? Because the thing they’re taking in, internalizing is NOT a perfect transportation to the circumstances of their rape and the successful emergence out the other side with newfound awareness of having been safe from harm the whole time.

Without any way to even pretend that the dynamic being witnessed from a distance has actually resulted in a theft of agency rather than merely the appearance of it.....what’s left? What actually sits there, described so vividly on the page?

Sex.

Because just like rape isn’t really sex so much as its the taking or asserting of power VIA sex...the image or description of one person raping another without the actual taking or assertion of power....basically just looks a lot like sex.

Which incidentally, IMO, might have a fucking LOT to do with how fucking bad our society is at noting the difference between sex and rape, and the fact that they’re not interchangeable or one and the same. And why rape survivors so often face slut-shaming and victim-blaming and are accused of actually wanting it.

Because when you’ve been conditioned by a lifetime of fictional media consumption to equate rape with the sex you SEE or READ about, as being basically the entirety of it and the intangible elements of it just abstract to you.....its very easy to look at a survivor and see not someone who had something intangible but very much REAL stolen from them via sex....but just a person who had bad sex they didn’t like.

And THIS, more than anything else, is what I personally view as the greatest ramification of widespread rape fantasies and noncon fics in fandom: that there is ultimately a ceiling on how much it can help any or every survivor cope or heal from their trauma - even while acknowledging that there are surely some specific contexts or combinations of elements in some individuals’ traumas that allow for fictional recreations to still largely serve the function those survivors aim to get out of them - but again, in terms of a coping mechanism that’s universally applicable or viable for all survivors of all scenarios? 

Nuh uh. No way. There’s no possible chance of making that claim in all honesty, and without making that claim, even the argument of it being a successful coping mechanism for SOME survivors in some specific ways, does not validate the ease with which its trotted out as a truism for all survivors to take heed of and all nonsurvivors to respect.

But MEANWHILE, at the same time, an equally inevitable end result of these fics.....is the continued desensitization of readers en masse, to the reality of rape as a theft of something intangible, impossible to fully recreate or depict as an experience, except in reality or potentially, some day in virtual reality. 

It inevitably serves to perpetuate the unspoken and perhaps sometimes even unconscious view, that rape is ultimately just sex of a certain kind. And so more and more, it becomes viewed as something that has the capacity to titillate and arouse....the same as any other form of sex, obviously. Because why wouldn’t it....if ultimately, that’s all its treated as being?