#it hits you like a freight train

[veetyuh]

CW: non-graphic mentions of CSAM, graphic descriptions of the mental health effects of viewing it, and rambling about antis in relation to it. If you've heard my shpiel on this, sorry in advance.

I used to do content moderation so I have seen way too much actually vile shit. CSAM included. And it is difficult to describe the gravity of what seeing that does to a normal person. But here's my best shot at what it did to me, anyway.

Imagine you're given a video from some nondescript, totally blank (firstname_numbers) account, and when you open it, you can't quite process what's happening on screen. It's not blurry or dark or otherwise obscured. It's very clear, but your brain won't allow you to accept it for a solid 30 seconds. Then, there's horror that sinks into your bones and makes your stomach turn. There's some sort of primal, lizard-brain fury mixed in — and perhaps you even fantasize over retaliating with things you didn't fancy yourself capable of. There's soul-crushing sorrow as you recall there's nothing you can do to help stop this, and all you can do is bear witness to this atrocity, then pathetically report it after the fact. The video automatically unmutes. The sounds are the worst part. If you've ever seen the brick video, this audio is similar in that it haunts you forever. It's overwhelming. You cycle between these emotions so quickly that they blend into each other, and become greater than the sum of their parts. It's a nuclear bomb set off inside your skull. You want to cry, punch a wall, and throw up. You do none of those things because you are too stunned to function. And then suddenly, there's numbness. Like a switch has turned off all the feelings in your brain. All of the unspeakable things you were feeling are gone in an instant.

Maybe you're a tougher nut to crack. Maybe the switch doesn't flip for you on the first video. So you let those emotions ride out until they've physically exhausted you. You pace and you marinate in the aftermath, feeling like you need to vent but knowing you can't. You can't even summarize what you saw without painting a picture so disturbing that it'll fuck up whoever is kind enough to listen to you. All you can do is turn to a loved one, explain that you saw something earth-shatteringly upsetting, and hope they can distract you. Maybe they express sympathy and give their best effort. Maybe you give your own best effort. Maybe you drink or use substances to get away from it, but it still festers in the back of your mind the entire time.

But that switch will flip for you, eventually. And when it does, it'll have you shitting bricks. It's like a hurricane stopping, only for you to realize you're in the eye. One moment you're feeling physically ill from the strength of your own negative emotions — the next, you can't feel anything. Your head feels different. Clearer, more room for thought. But then you move on to the next video, and the fresh horrors do nothing to you. And that's when the gravity of emotional dissociation sinks in. You can't feel anything. You could cut a man's throat and it would feel the same as tying your shoe. You have tapped into something that feels ancient. It's like you've regressed into a lower evolutionary life form incapable of emotion. Below cavemen. Humans aren't meant to experience something like this. It's the cold, unthinking indifference of a creature which could eat its own young without blinking.

But you use it for good. You use it to function when you otherwise can't, and overcome the task at hand. And it helps you tremendously as a content moderator. Eventually, you get so good at it that you can turn your emotions off at will, and do it before you even view your first video of the day.

It does not help you once you're done. While the metaphorical emotion switch can be turned off at will, turning it back on is a chore. It usually takes a while to wear off. Maybe an hour or two once you're done. But the more you do it, the harder it is to break out of it.

Imagine going back to your normal life while you're stuck in that mindset. You try to watch TV or play video games and none of it brings you any joy — like the worst, most suffocating depression. Except it isn't depression, and you have the will, the energy, and the definite need for something to take your mind off what you've seen, but nothing changes that listless straightjacket your brain is stuck in. There should be dread and panic taking root, because the accompanying thoughts are there. Is this your new normal? Will you ever feel anything again? But there is neither dread nor panic, because your body won't allow you to feel them. Not even chemical alteration gets it back on track, and it's only after you've nursed away the hangover the next morning that you can kindle a tiny spark of emotion, again. And through the searing headache, you wonder if fighting the good fight is truly worth the possibility of being stuck without feelings forever.

All of this to say, repeated CSAM exposure is anthrax. It makes you sick in ways you didn't even know were possible, and if you survive it, the experience will follow you forever. You're also not going to talk about it in public. Even vague descriptions of it are enough to seriously traumatize those who encounter it. It feels like a public safety hazard to talk about. Trigger warnings are not enough. A proper description would warrant a fucking consent form. That's something your therapist has to coax out of you like you're a Vietnam vet with war trauma.

What you DON'T do is repost it. Even if it's to argue or express anger/disgust. You don't scroll the tags looking for it, either. No one in their right fucking mind treats actual CSAM the way antis treat "cp" and that's what infuriates me the most about them. They water down the term the same way kids water down "gaslighting."

Drawings of fictional characters are not CSAM. If you can describe it publicly, if you can repost or respond to it and use it for rage bait, then it isn't CSAM. The people who do this are, very obviously, not experiencing any of the trauma which is involved with viewing real CSAM. They are acting on disgust impulses, and then they have the audacity to imply that their discomfort is tantamount to experiencing some of the most traumatizing material a person can view.

It isn't CSAM. They know that it isn't CSAM. Every sane, socialized human adult knows that it isn't CSAM and I'm exhausted with acting like it isn't incredibly offensive to call it that.

[oldbutchdaniel]

4.04 // 4.10

[pilkypills]

Thranduil is absolutely the sort of person who’d let his dishes sit in the sink for months considering he chose to ignore the Big Evil Thing in his backyard that actively infested his house with spiders and scary goo for centuries

[whiskeyswifty]

Without getting too much into it, the most heartbreaking line in the manuscript to me is “She knew what the agony had been for” because all the time she didn’t even realize what had happened to her. She’d clearly denied it, dismissed it, insisted that no it wasn’t like that, she was an adult! She was capable of making her own choices! Maybe she didn’t want to taint happy memories. He was just a shitty boyfriend and they broke down and broke up like all couples do. She knew what it looked like but no no, she was fine in that regard. He never… no she wasn’t a victim like that. And yet…. She couldn’t move past it, couldn’t lay it to rest. Wondering why she agonized over it, felt sick over it, went over it again and again, haunted by it unlike other breakups. It took all those years and making the short film and seeing 20 year old Sadie Sink in that room with adults and fighting with an adult man to realize oh…. She’s a child. They were right. That is what happened to me. I was a child. And the deluge of pain that comes with finally confronting that. The song drops off after that, the pain unspeakable, and skips to the present, where after exorcising that demon finally, “all that’s left is the manuscript.” And she can finally close the book on that story in her life and not have it define her anymore. But that line really just hits home how long she had been carrying the burden of that unspoken and unresolved truth, buried under denial, slowly festering and poisoning her for some 10 years. God damn.

[twentysidednerd]

guys

guys guys guys

please tell me you see the vision

/hj

[draganora]

So, I see a lot of people talking about Emmet finding traces of Ingo in museums and such but I'd like to pitch a totally different idea.

Imagine if both Ingo and Emmet saw the museum pieces. Imagine they BOTH saw it FIRST.

They didn't realize what was to come.

Maybe they even based their vibe off of it, who knows!

And then Ingo goes missing.

And it all clicks.

[hylaversicolor]

many of him

snake eater 1 + 2 (age 20): self explanatory. military buzzcut. parade dress. scarf. with and without beret, for funsies. iconic.

portable ops (age 26): i drew him once before in this outfit but i think he was doing three piece suits throughout the latter half of the 60s and into the early 70s. and he kept the sides of his head shaved but started growing out the top part a little. i know portable ops isn’t technically canon but i think that he definitely killed the DCI to get the other half of the legacy for zero. pomade era!

les enfants terribles project (age 28): baby’s first facial hair. in my mind this was around the time he first got into drugs because the situation was so stressful and also it was the 70s.

early 9 yr gap (30s): i don’t have a specific timeframe for this but the point of this entry and the next are to juxtapose what his hair looks like when he takes care of it and what it looks like when he just lets it grow out and get awful. in my head if he were to style his hair in any of the upcoming entries it would have those swoopy wavy 70s curls just like here.

soviet invasion of afghanistan (age 35): i think this is where he first started getting Bad. he makes a few references to the invasion in the mgsv tapes and he just sounds so sick and tired of it.

1982 (age 38): i just stuck this in for my own personal enjoyment but in my mind he let his hair get so long and ratty and nasty before finally hacking it all off with kitchen shears over the sink just before mgsv. (insert post: love this character. love to see them at the lowest point in their life)

phantom pain (age 40): i think all instances of the scarf are the same one he’s had since the 60s. he takes good care of his clothing

foxhound 199X (50s): to be honest i have NO idea what ocelot was doing in the 90s. hopefully he got clean. i think it would be funny if he stopped by foxhound every so often moonlighting as like a horseback riding instructor or something. kaz would love that i’m sure

shadow moses (61): in my mind his hair is curled so beautifully in mgs1, it just is to me

stealing ray (63): i think it would be funny if liquid made him pierce his ears. i love giving him a braid when i draw mgs2 ocelot i KNOW he doesn’t have one but in my mind he does

guns of the patriots (70): no red in his outfit tragic. also i think he straightened his hair for this game. slay?

[ayceofcard]

so i rewatched the blonde space wizard's adventures the other day

[skydigiblogs]

happy fathers day, apocalymon

[hephaestuscrew]

Can't believe I accidentally abandoned Unwell podcast for nearly two years for no reason. I'm finally catching up with it and I'm feeling some kind of way about ghosts that don't know they are ghosts, and ghosts that aren't exactly ghosts at all, and ghosts that are previous versions of you, and towns that are alive and complicated, and houses that shift and change and become unfamiliar in the same way a person's own mind can, and family, and tradition, and history, and memory, and community, and grief...

[ratatatastic]

"And to follow up on Niko Mikkola...his sense of humour with him, like, maybe—lot of people don't talk—like, last night he was like, you know, he "woke Bobby up," or whatever. "Good thing Bob was awake—"

"He's a great personality and I've said this kinda during the year. And we've, you know, I mean we're always—...I was gonna say, "It'd be great if you guys could spend a lot of time with him," but then we spend a lot of time trying to make sure you guys don't spend too much time with our guys, so, there goes—so, forget that! But, he is an incredibly interesting guy. What's great is when he's coming to the bench... if there's something that's broken down, and I'm not sure if he's screaming in Finnish or it's in English, but it is funny as hell! And it's consistent. So, he plays really high-energy level. A lot of times these kinda big, lanky guys are... you don't really think they're moving that fast, but they are! He looks like he's getting across the ice, and, you know, he competes hard. That's what we like the most of him, but he talks at a high-energy level, too, on the bench. And that's great, right? We have some quiet players on our bench, and that's fine, that's who they are. But, those guys like Mikkola, who's got—nobody knows—Well there's four other Finnish guys knowing what he's saying, but nobody else knows what he's saying.

paul loves all his rascals and it is a joy to hear his takes on them its mikksys turn now!

media availability | 6.11.24 (x)

also if you want to see the moment mikksy is talking about in the interviews linked above because it is genuinely bonkers 10 or so seconds of hockey: here it is

[mira-likes]

And this is how you lose your kid forever, Emperor

… I mean, I don’t know what’s coming, but that realisation on Fan Xian’s face that the justice he wants will never be served while the emperor is in power, swiftly followed by the realisation that going against the emperor on this was why his mother died… that was the end of Fan Xian’s last illusion and I feel like in that moment he was totally ready to follow in his mother’s footsteps. Still fight for what he feels is right or die trying (and he sees his defeat written in the imperial censor’s blood on the palace flagstones)

So many people wish Fan Xian well if he only fits into the system. If he accepts the immense privilege he has and uses it only insofar as he’s allowed.

Too bad for everyone involved that he was never capable of doing that

[biomic]

good thing, byoonbyoomger would've sounded silly.

[moonlit-knightz]

Welcome to camp! Meet your counselors!

new fic uploaded!

[leamiche]

🥳

[thedeadtravelfast]