History Main / ConditionedToAcceptHorror

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* Almost the entire population of Amonkhet in ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering''. Amonkhet is a DaylightHorror take on [[FantasyCounterpartCulture Fantasy Ancient Egypt]] where death is not just accepted, it's actively sought after in difficult trials, with the worthy ''supposedly'' going to a bountiful afterlife; since the [[GodEmperor God-Pharaoh]] is Nicol Bolas this is somewhat unlikely. [[http://media.wizards.com/2017/dw466ytu5_akh/en_mqrKtwlFS3.png Oashra Cultivator]], for example, is a smiling gardener surrounded by flowers, who is casually talking about being "harvested". [[spoiler:In Hour of Devastation, everyone gets a wake-up call as Bolas' agents and army essentially commit genocide.]]

se it's their job (literally their job for classes like clerics and warlocks).

* ''TabletopGame/CallOfCthulhu'' player characters, non-player characters, friends, and foes all alike can, and probably will, become this trope if they didn't already start like this for one reason or another.
** When integrating antagonists and mechanics from the d20 version of the game into the more common ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' or D20 modern settings, the manual recommends either dramatically reducing or leaving out the sanity-erosion mechanic entirely because of this trope. Fantasy adventurers accept weird things beyond their comprehension all the time because it's their job (literally their job for classes like clerics and warlocks).

SubTrope to FailedAttemptAtScaring. See also BlankSlate, NurtureOverNature, MiseryBuildsCharacter, MoreThanMindControl, RousseauWasRight, DissonantSerenity, ThenLetMeBeEvil, FreudianExcuseDenial, TooBrokenToBreak, and ForMeItWasTuesday. A sister trope to SeenItAll.

SubTrope to FailedAttemptAtScaring. See also BlankSlate, NurtureOverNature, MiseryBuildsCharacter, MoreThanMindControl, RousseauWasRight, DissonantSerenity, ThenLetMeBeEvil, FreudianExcuseDenial and TooBrokenToBreak. A sister trope to SeenItAll.

SubTrope to FailedAttemptAtScaring. See also BlankSlate, NurtureOverNature, MiseryBuildsCharacter, MoreThanMindControl, RousseauWasRight, StockholmSyndrome, DissonantSerenity, ThenLetMeBeEvil, FreudianExcuseDenial and TooBrokenToBreak. A sister trope to SeenItAll.

-->-- '''The Priestess''', ''LightNovel/GoblinSlayer''

See also BlankSlate, NurtureOverNature, MiseryBuildsCharacter, MoreThanMindControl, RousseauWasRight, StockholmSyndrome, DissonantSerenity, ThenLetMeBeEvil, FreudianExcuseDenial and TooBrokenToBreak. A sister trope to SeenItAll.

[[folder:Real Life]]
* As a general rule, this can apply to anything from an abusive childhood to residents in a war-torn area dealing with bombings. Not accepting it in this manner would likely lead to some serious SanitySlippage.
* In the US, many people seem to have been desensitized to mass shootings, enough that every time one happens, ''Website/TheOnion'' can repost the article "[[https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1846494525 'No Way To Prevent This', Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens]]" and only have to change the location and number of victims.
* Professionals as well rely on this as a coping mechanism. Soldiers, police officers, paramedics, firefighters, you name it, often fall into this either by [[GallowsHumor jokingly evoking it]] to poke fun at crappy taskings or exercises, or seriously relying on it to [[TearJerker deal with actual horrors they experience]].
* From the 17th to the 19th century, sailors that were PressGanged or willingly accepted a position aboard a slave ship [[FallenOnHardTimesJob out of sheer need,]] reported that on their first voyage to Africa, they felt incredibly guilty over the fact that they were being forced to chain up and cram as many horrified people into the cargo hold as possible, watch as the higher ranking crewmen beat the captives mercilessly or raped them. However, as the voyage went on, the new sailors began to accept that capturing people and selling them as cattle was just another part of the job, and didn't even flinch when the captives were severely flogged by their superiors, or when they did it themselves. [[ItGetsEasier Some even joined in future enslaving expeditions]].
* There are [[AbusivePrecursors quite a few horrific things that our ancestors did]] that most people at the time just accepted as "the way it is" (be it slavery, public executions, burning people at the stake, etc). Thankfully many of those things have either been abolished or at least made morally unacceptable enough that they are illegal in most places. It's also highly likely that our descendants will regard some things ''we'' consider normal and acceptable with the same degree of visceral horror most people today have for things like slavery or burning people alive.
* Indeed, this happens to people even with a charmed life. Due to a lack of experience and emotional regulation, something mundane can feel as if it is the worst thing that ever happened to a person. It’s only when they grow up that they accept these day to day inconveniences.
* From a canine perspective, things like escalators and heavy traffic can seem alien and scary. In order to confidently guide their owner through the day, guide dogs are selected for an appropriate temperament, which has to be further honed through desensitization and training. The result is a dog that is alert enough to assess dangers the environment but calm enough to react appropriately to them.
* A more benign example: Fans of {{Horror}} media often find themselves becoming "Snobbish" towards horror media and finding a lot of stuff "Not scary" as they get older. Because they intentionally seek out horror, they don't experience as much cortisol or adrenaline when watching things other people would find absolutely terrifying. There are of course exceptions - as horror is itself quite diverse in its offerings - but the principle still stands: Horror fans condition themselves.
** This is also why a lot of people remember NightmareFuel from children's media so much despite an actual horror fan might not find it as scary: You don't watch something named ''Franchise/CareBears'' expecting to be scared. But you read something like ''Literature/{{Dracula}}'' for GothicHorror.
[[/folder]]

* [[ConditionedToAcceptHorror/{{Film}} Film -- Live-Action]]

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[[quoteright:250:[[Webcomic/{{Erma}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/erma_horror.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:250:When you have a StringyHairedGhostGirl as a daughter, nothing surprises you anymore.]]

* ConditionedToAcceptHorror/{{Webcomics}}

* The 'Jaded' Trait in ''TabletopGame/DarkHeresy'' indicates a character whose life has been so dark and crappy that they've become entirely immune to fear and SanityMeter hits from 'mundane' horrors that have a natural explanation (such as, say, a very grisly murder scene; seeing an EldritchAbomination in the flesh will still hurt your psyche). There are several character backgrounds that makes your character start with this trait, from being Mind-Wiped to hailing from Volg Hive, a place so violent, dirty and low-down that it basically serves as a garbage pit you throw people too savage to live in a WretchedHive in.
** By extension, ''TabletopGame/{{Deathwatch}}'' invokes this trope due to the player characters being Imperial Space Marines. Part of their training and indoctrination is being conditioned to horror (the Emperor specifically said "and they shall know no fear"), so that even though the mechanic still exists, the Game Master is encouraged to only make the players check sanity for the highest levels of cosmic horrors.
* In ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}'', having the Callous disadvantage along with the Unfazeable or multiple levels of the Fearlessness advantage, and no disadvantages like Pacifism, Phobia or Squeamish, makes a character fitting this trope.
* ''TabletopGame/CallOfCthulhu'' player characters, non-player characters, friends, and foes all alike can, and probably will, become this trope if they didn't already start like this for one reason or another.
** When integrating antagonists and mechanics from the d20 version of the game into the more common ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' or D20 modern settings, the manual recommends either dramatically reducing or leaving out the sanity-erosion mechanic entirely because of this trope. Fantasy adventurers accept weird things beyond their comprehension all the time because it's their job (literally their job for classes like clerics and warlocks).

* Almost the entire population of Amonkhet in ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering''. Amonkhet is a DaylightHorror take on [[FantasyCounterpartCulture Fantasy Ancient Egypt]] where death is not just accepted, it's actively sought after in difficult trials, with the worthy ''supposedly'' going to a bountiful afterlife; since the [[GodEmperor God-Pharaoh]] is Nicol Bolas this is somewhat unlikely. [[http://media.wizards.com/2017/dw466ytu5_akh/en_mqrKtwlFS3.png Oashra Cultivator]], for example, is a smiling gardener surrounded by flowers, who is casually talking about being "harvested". [[spoiler:In Hour of Devastation, everyone gets a wake-up call as Bolas' agents and army essentially commit genocide.]]
** Tarkir's Atarka Brood is outright stated to be this. Being a clan whose basically glorified waiters to a perpetually hungry and paranoid dragon should drive most people to despair, but they take it in stride.

* Shirou in ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight''. It's hinted at in Fate route with how quickly he adapts to the situation and more or less stated outright at the beginning of UBW. Why did he stay calm when [[spoiler:Shinji tried to melt everyone in the school]]? Because he's used to seeing corpses, which lets him tell them apart from people who are just injured! Isn't it obvious? To explain why he was used to seeing corpses at 18ish, [[spoiler:as a child, he was at ground zero of a magical version of Hiroshima, and the trauma of the explosion meant his first memories were of walking past literally hundreds of burning, melting, screaming very-soon-to-be-corpses]].

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* In ''Anime/CodeGeass'', Emperor Charles invokes the trope, believing the people will accept what they are forced into when given enough time. [[spoiler:Lelouch defies this trope, saying that time will never happen and proves it.]]
* ''Anime/DarlingInTheFranxx'': Zero Two has been a prized military asset of APE and sent to fight on the front lines for so long that she has no regard for human life or her own, since [[ChildSoldiers they all exist to fight and die]] and [[AMillionIsAStatistic become a statistic anyway]]. Heck, even when her beloved is dying, perhaps the one person she unambiguously cares about, she hardly bats an eye at it because, to her, it's just a fact of life that everyone dies.
* ''Manga/GunslingerGirl'' used this as an early conceit. The girls are very sweet and can pass for normal in public, but they cannot comprehend the idea that there's anything morose or negative in the fact that they must kill people on command, most of the time without knowing why. This is best summed up in an early story where Rico realizes she must kill a busboy she befriended earlier because he's a witness. At first it seems like she's hesitating for human reasons, but it turns out that [[spoiler:she was trying to remember the words "I'm sorry". That she had to kill him was never a doubt in her mind]].
* Rei in ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion''. Her character relationship arc with Shinji is based largely on how he questions why she feels this is necessary. Mostly it's the fault of Shinji's dad.
* Hansel and Gretel of ''Manga/BlackLagoon'' end up as CreepyTwins due to this trope.
* The main character of ''Manga/PandoraHearts'' can accept anything life throws at him -- death, being thrown into an extra-dimensional hell/prison, stuff like that. Most disturbingly, he actually conditioned ''himself'' into this as opposed to the usual premise of it having been performed by morally dubious characters. Naturally, this creeps the heck out of his friends.
* [[DarkMagicalGirl Fate Testarossa]] in the first season of ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha'' seemed to genuinely believe that [[EvilMatriarch her mother's]] abuse of her was a good enough substitute for parental affection, because she has never actually experienced the latter ([[spoiler:other than in Alicia's memories]]). So much, she even defended her mother's actions to her familiar Arf. It takes many years for Lindy to "decondition" her to accept real tenderness [[HatesBeingTouched without tensing up]].
* [[spoiler: Hibiki]] from ''Manga/BloodyMonday Season 2'' is perfectly understanding about the possibility of dying and being replaced because [[spoiler: not only has she been trained to be a perfect agent since childhood, she also has seven identical clones and ''all'' of them were specifically bred for spying]].
* The "normal" people from [[spoiler: Miyu's homeworld]] in ''Manga/FateKaleidLinerPrismaIllya''. Illya comes to this realization when she realizes both of them automatically go "people can't fly" despite the magic they've seen. "The Ainsworths have taken their wings."
* In ''Anime/{{Endride}}'', assassins like [[TykeBomb Mischa]] are [[SuperHumanTrafficking kidnapped as children]], [[EmotionlessGirl emotionally broken]] and then {{brainwashed}} in order to become more effective killers for their owners.
* ''Manga/{{InuYasha}}'': All of the protagonists, sans Kagome, count to varying degrees. Miroku and Sango are so used to the mass destruction of their era that, while they're sympathetic to the loss of entire villages, they're also pragmatic about not being able to do much about it. Inuyasha takes the cake, considering that, in Episode 9, he thought nothing of stopping for a meal break in the middle of a ''corpse-strewn battlefield''.
* The main characters and most of the community in ''Manga/MadeInAbyss''. The value, [[spoiler:both financial and military]], of objects found in the titular EldritchLocation results in the society on its fringes training orphans to mine its shallower depths. The community accepts this, despite the fact that many of the children are orphans ''because'' of the Abyss. By the time children are old enough to reach the deeper layers, they're supposed to be able to deal with the horrors and insanity that exist in the dark below.
* ''Manga/Overlord2012'':
** Victim, the eight floor guardian is a weird critter resembling a floating fetus with a halo and a cutesy voice, whose shtick is that when he dies (and he's purposefully easy to kill), the invaders are hit with all sorts of horrible status debuffs. This was all well and good when he was just an NPC, but now that he's an actual sentient being he's downright ''eager'' to be killed in defense of Nazarick, no matter how much Ainz apologizes and promises to resurrect him afterwards.
** Tsuare was forced to work as a prostitute in a brothel that throws the girls out when they're used up and caters to clients who like getting violent. When Sebas rescues her despite orders not to get noticed, Ainz decides to ensure that Sebas' loyalty is unchanged and orders him to kill her. She's so happy that he rescued her from that hellhole that she smiles at him and shows no resistance as he prepares to kill her in a single punch. [[spoiler:Fortunately Cocytus blocks the punch, allowing him to determine that Sebas had every intention of killing Tsuare as ordered.]] This reassures the other guardians that Sebas isn't going rogue, and the matter is dropped [[spoiler:and Tsuare is allowed to live at Nazarick as a maid]].
* In ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'', several of the witches, their barriers and imagery are rather creepy. However, veteran Puella Magi enter barriers day after day, and are unfazed by this. A good example is Yachiyo Nanami, a veteran from ''VideoGame/MagiaRecordPuellaMagiMadokaMagicaSideStory''. Special shoutout goes to [[EmoTeen Homura]], who - after Sayaka and Madoka cowered before the sight of [[spoiler: Mami dying gruesomely]], - defeats Charlotte like she was just another conquered castle. Explanation: [[spoiler: Homura is a TimeMaster, who's SaveScumming here]].
* PlayedForLaughs in ''Manga/MissionYozakuraFamily.'' The Yozakuras are so hard on Taiyo that he's desensitized to most everyday thrills. For instance, when he and Mutsumi ride a roller coaster, he ends up falling asleep because it's ''relaxing'' compared to his daily training and frequent missions.
* In Episode 5 of ''Manga/{{SHWD}}'', Koga is stunned to learn [[spoiler: that a SHWD employee went berserk during a disposal and killed 5 of his teammates after forgetting to take his suppression drug. What horrifies her more is how nonchalant her fellow employees are about the matter, with one even mentioning that cases like this used to be a lot more common]].
* In ''Anime/KillLaKill'' Mako Mankanshoku lived her life almost as if she was blissfully unawares that’s her school is essentially a fascist dictatorship where she’s forced to live in the slums and any misbehavior is punishable by death. Her friendship with Ryuko makes her only SLIGHTLY more aware of the world around her.

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* In ''ComicBook/XMen'', Bella Donna Boudreaux was raised to be a professional hitwoman, from at least the time she was eight years old, and possibly younger. As a result she has no qualms about committing murder.
* Hit-Girl from ''ComicBook/KickAss'', has no qualms about vigilante murder and even killing mooks for money. She has been trained by her father to be a killing machine [[spoiler:because he wanted a more exciting life]].
* Frank Castle, AKA ComicBook/ThePunisher; a dark vigilante who derives a macabre thrill from gunning down scores of criminals. During his military service in the Vietnam War, Frank came to thrive in the bloodshed and chaos surrounding him; he craved combat. While the war was a traumatic nightmare for many who fought in it, Frank actually misses his time in Vietnam, and part of the reason he kills criminals is to continue waging a war that he should've ended long ago.
* ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'':
** The hitman Cain has raised his daughter [[ComicBook/Batgirl2000 Cassandra]] from an early age to be nothing but a killing machine. In fact, it was his intention that violence and martial arts be the only language in which she is fluent, and she is, for all intents and purposes, mute. While successful at making her into a nigh-unstoppable fighting machine, Cain's regimen actually backfired massively when it came to conditioning Cass psychologically. The first time she killed someone her abilities meant she could "read" all the target's emotions as he died, making the experience even ''more'' traumatizing than it would be for a regular six-year-old. She converted to ThouShaltNotKill on the spot.
** Batman's own son Damian, who was raised by the League of Assassins and conditioned to not only kill but to enjoy killing.
** Batman himself is a milder example. While he does fight for a better world and never embraces its ugly side, his parents' death spurs him to understand how that ugly side operates so he can face it without fear.
** ComicBook/TheJoker apparently has a clinical version of this. In ''ComicBook/ArkhamAsylumASeriousHouseOnSeriousEarth'', one of the doctors discusses how the Joker is wired to accept the harshness of reality better than most normal people can. Since he lives in a hellholle like Gotham, this "super sanity" as they call it manifests as laughing at death, pain and fear.
** During her ComicBook/{{Batwoman}} training, Kate Kane lived for two weeks in a room covered in grisly crime scene photos and spent a majority of that time watching torture and murder videos to help completely desensitize her to the sorts of horrors she'd likely see as a vigilante. Prior to this, her military training at West Point would have had a similar, though less extreme, affect.
* ComicBook/{{Raven}} of the ''ComicBook/TeenTitans'' is an ApocalypseMaiden who, since birth, was trained to seal away her emotions, despite the fact that she was an [[TheEmpath empath]] who thrived off other people's emotions.
* Carl Grimes from ''ComicBook/TheWalkingDead'' has been forced into this in order to cope with death in the comics, though more in the form of SafetyInIndifference then being cheerful about it. A good example is his reaction to [[spoiler:Tyreese's death]]. It eventually causes TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior.
* ComicBook/{{Huntress}} is a peculiar example, because while she witnessed the murder of her family when she was eight years old, and was then raised by assassins who trained her to fight and kill, those same assassins also loved and cared for her and showed her real affection. They certainly did condition her to accept horror, but not out of cruelty.
* Bruce Banner, better known as the ComicBook/IncredibleHulk, forces himself not to react to the dangerous situations he finds himself in out of fear of HulkingOut, justified since as the Hulk he's [[NighInvulnerability Nigh-Invulnerable]] so the only thing he's really worried about is [[YouWouldntLikeMeWhenImAngry what's gonna happen to the enemy.]] This trait is carried over to his [[Series/TheIncredibleHulk1977 TV]] and [[Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse film]] counterparts.
* ''ComicBook/MegaManArchieComics'': Rock grows increasingly disturbed by how most of the Robot Masters are totally accepting of their place in society as basically slaves, as well as the fact that they'll eventually be forcibly decommissioned. They were programmed to not see themselves as being alive, only lifelike, so they're all totally conditioned to the idea that they have no say in anything. However, hints are dropped that many Masters are starting to [[GrewBeyondTheirProgramming Grow Beyond Their Programming]] and defy this.
* Sameal of ''ComicBook/{{Birthright}}'' uses magic to invoke PrimalFear in a police SWAT team (reassuring his allies that it cost no more than five years of the victims' lives). The same magic is useless against anyone from Terrenos because the constant, bloody warfare has raised the threshold for horror across the population.

[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
* PlayedForLaughs in ''WesternAnimation/InsideOut:'' Fear watches Riley's AnxietyDreams, but since his job is to be anxious 24/7, he's not really fazed.
-->'''Fear:''' Let me guess: [[NotWearingPantsDream we're not wearing pants]].\\
'''Character in dream:''' Look, she's not wearing pants! ''[laughter]''\\
'''Fear:''' ''(punches air lazily)'' Called it.

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* ''Film/{{Metropolis}}'': One of the machines in the lower city overheats and releases deadly clouds of boiling-hot steam that kill several workers, but once the chaos is over the survivors stop only to solemnly clear away the dead bodies, while new workers take their place. This is driven home by Freder, who is seeing these horrors for the first time, imagining the machine as a shrine to a GodOfEvil, where the black-robed workers [[HumanSacrifice willingly walk into its fiery jaws]] (in contrast to a chain of struggling, cowering slaves who are man-handled into the jaws of Moloch).
* Franchise/{{Rambo}} in ''Film/FirstBlood'' is particularly notable in that he realizes he's so conditioned to accept horror that he doesn't actually have any idea what he's supposed to do with his life now that the war's over. The entire premise of the movie is pretty much him demanding an answer to this question and not getting one. Later movies "solved" this problem by tossing Rambo into typical action movie plots against AlwaysChaoticEvil nemeses. [[Literature/FirstBlood The original book]], by contrast, ended with Rambo killed as a result of his inability to adapt.
* The first half of ''Film/FullMetalJacket''. Some might say that Creator/StanleyKubrick depicted this trope a bit too well.
* ''Film/Downfall2004'': After days of fighting the Russians, most of the Berlin defenders treat the death and chaos around them as rote. As Koller and a group of soldiers and staff leave the bunker for good, a man [[AteHisGun eating his gun]] in front of everyone gets nothing more than mild exasperation in response.
* ''Film/TheHunted2003'' featured a character who was trained to be proficient in close-quarters knife assault tactics. This type of assassination is very emotionally taxing, and combat training includes with it conditioning to help make close-range murder easier on the psyche. The main conflict in the movie comes when the main character, having gone through this training, is utterly unable to relinquish violence and reintegrate into the world.
* In ''Film/{{Soldier}}'' the SuperSoldier squad is forced to watch a pack of dogs attacking a wild boar as children during their training, among other things (and it's implied that it's a regular occurrence, not just a one time thing). The main character is then completely unable to exist as anything except a soldier in later life, and has no qualms about killing a hostage to kill an enemy. [[spoiler: He rediscovers his humanity when he is ruthlessly "decommissioned" and accepted by a community of castaways, though he remains a soldier first and foremost.]]
* Similarly, ChildSoldiers in ''Film/BloodDiamond'' are mercilessly drilled (and sometimes drugged) in order to teach them how to kill.
* {{Downplayed|Trope}} in ''Film/TwelveYearsASlave.'' We see slaves on the Epps' plantation quietly working together as the screams of fellow slaves being whipped fills the air-there's no delight in hearing such sounds, there's just acceptance, and the knowledge that if any of them so much as move to give water, they'll be next under the lash.
* ''Film/HotFuzz'' has all the townsfolk of Sanford unfazed by all the [[CruelAndUnusualDeath grisly deaths]] going on, treating them all as minor inconveniences. Part of the reason that Sanford citizens are okay with this is that the typical citizen actually doesn't see it. Most deaths are attributed to accidents by the police and the conspiracy arranges the deaths to look they resulted from foibles of the victim or the environment of the town (a town drunk is killed in a gas stove explosion, which was attributed to his midnight snacking, a overly-dramatic citizen was found in a car wreck after he engaged in multiple attempts to bribe the police to ignore his speeding, and another victim was killed by debris falling from a church tower in dis-repair, while the at a feit to specifically raise funds to repair the church tower). Other victims are just people who disappear without the residents really knowing or missing them. Among the cops, only one is in on the conspiracy, and the rest view him as a good boss who encourages a positive work environment and the only cops who suspect a thing are seen as crazy from the tedium of police work in an idyllic community long before they "leave" the force. Given the number of bodies and the various states of decay when the conspiracy's work is revealed, it's implied that they prefer letting their targets look like they left town instead of succumbing to accidents. It helps that the cops regularly point out that they haven't had a documented murder in 30 years, so the police won't suspect foul play immediately AND all the members of the conspiracy are upstanding and outgoing members of the community who are rather generous with their efforts to help the greater good.
* In ''Film/{{Suffragette}}'', the protagonist, Maude, at first refuses to say anything against her boss, stating that he is a good employer. Then, when she has been convinced to just give a statement of what her job is like (as the suffragettes want to prove that women work just as hard as men) she calmly describes the gruesome deaths of colleagues in work accidents, how the chemicals they have to work with decrease their lifespan, and how they put their babies in baskets under the kettles with boiling water, which their employer thinks is completely okay, as he wants them to return to work early. What she does not tell, but is later revealed is that [[spoiler: the man also routinely rapes the young teenaged girls who work for him, and it is implied he did this to Maud, too]]. The reason why Maud has to tell all those things is that the colleague, who originally offered to speak, has been beaten up by her husband and they fear that the men in power will not listen to a woman who isn't pretty. No one thinks this particularly remarkable, nor does anyone suggest to take the fact she's been beaten up so badly as evidence why women need votes.
* ''Your Neighbour's Son'' is a documentary on the conversion of Military Police recruits into torturers for the Greek Junta. The recruits are beaten and abused in recruit camp, then they inflict the same as senior recruits on the junior recruits, then they witness torture as guards, then inflict torture under orders, then graduate to torturers themselves.
* Just remember all the good ''Film/ThePurge'' does.
* PlayedForLaughs in ''Film/{{Clue}}'', as the guests become less and less concerned for the care of the corpses as the movie goes on and the murders stack up. When [[spoiler: the cook dies]], they take great care not to aggravate the deadly injury. By they time they get to [[spoiler: the singing telegram girl]], they simply drop her face-first on the floor from waist-height. And by the time they find [[spoiler: Yvette's body]], they simply walk into the room, stare for a few seconds at the body, then leave without so much as a word.

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* Connor from season 4 of ''Series/{{Angel}}'' grew up on a demon world, so he's used to all the horrors. Specifically, when Jasmine showed up everybody saw her as beautiful, until they were exposed to her blood at which point they saw [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/buffy/images/b/ba/Jasmine.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20090610052513 her true form]] (NOTE: {{Squick}}y in an OK for TV sort of way), which Connor still described as beautiful. Mind you, that may be because he considers her to be his daughter (it's complicated) rather than because he actually likes her appearance.
* The jadedness with which Dr. Brennan and her team respond to extreme gore and decomp gets thrown into sharp relief on ''Series/{{Bones}}'', each time someone unaccustomed to such things, like Sweets or a guest star, walks in on a forensic examination in progress. Early on, Brennan's own clinical detachment when discussing violent murder occasionally invoked this trope even for her own colleagues.
* ''Series/BrooklynNineNine'': The episode "The Therapist" reveals that officer Jake Peralta has never been to therapy despite working murder cases for years. Dr. Tate calls him out on using his sense of humor to hide the deep pain he's holding in, and for a moment the entire premise of a comedy about police work feels horrific in hindsight.
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': Sunnydale, California is a town where the valedictorian(ish) can declare, "I am proud to announce that the class of '99 has the lowest mortality rate in Sunnydale history!" and get unironic cheers. Buffy also [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] this as it becomes more and more absurd over the years.
* The characters in ''Series/CriminalMinds'' are as conditioned to the horrifying depths of a depraved individual's mind as any character in a forensic show is to blood and gore... although they have to deal with that as well. There was an episode in which a murder took place on a Native American reservation and the Sheriff was initially a suspect. Gideon ruled him out after watching him give his own take on the crime scene. Like the killer, the sheriff was unfazed by the gruesome scene, but if he ''were'' the killer, he would have [[PlausibleDeniability feigned disgust]]. The episode "Uncanny Valley" delves into this trope. The [[MonsterOfTheWeek UnSub of the week]] is a PsychopathicWomanchild who is kidnapping adult women to turn them into life-sized dolls for a tea party, [[AndIMustScream perpetually frozen in place but still completely aware of their surroundings]]. When the team investigates, they discover that her father, a psychiatrist, molested her and used electroshock therapy when she got out of line, to the point where even ''decades'' later, the merest suggestion that he might be doing something wrong prompts her to robotically recite a mantra that he's a good father who never hurt her (which he clearly taught her to say if anyone ever asked her questions about him). This turns out to be the woman's FreudianExcuse: she became so used to living a hellish life with her father that she saw the dolls he gave her as rewards for good behavior as the only escape from her nightmarish existence, and so desperately tried to recreate them once her father took them from her and gave them to other little girls (who it's all but stated he's continued to sexually abuse).
* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E12ArmyOfGhosts "Army of Ghosts"]]: By the time the Doctor learns about them, the people of Earth have gotten used to the "ghosts" that appear at regular intervals every day, and have done so for months. How used to them? There are ads for ghost polish on TV, ghosts on daytime talk shows, and even on ''Series/EastEnders''.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E11WorldEnoughAndTime "World Enough and Time"]]: When Bill ends up stuck in the hospital on the bottom floor of the colony ship for a decade thanks to TimeDilation, this happens to her, as well as the residents of the city. People undergo a mysterious treatment to withstand the horrible pollution, but everyone slowly grows used to it as being necessary for survival. Bill, being an outsider, is initially upset, but becomes resigned to the special patients as time goes on.
* PlayedForLaughs somewhat in ''Series/{{Friends}}'', when Chandler goes to Joey's tailor, who he's been going to his entire life. The tailor feels him up while measuring him, and when Chandler tells Joey, Joey claims that that's how tailors get the correct measurements. It never occurred to him that tailors weren't supposed to borderline molest you when they took your measurements.
* Implied to be the case with most of the main cast of ''Series/{{Fringe}}'', to the point that it's been {{lampshade|Hanging}}d by the characters at least twice.
* ''Series/GameOfThrones'':
** This is such an integral part of the Unsullied's TrainingFromHell that their final test is to [[WouldHurtAChild murder an infant]] [[ForcedToWatch in front of its mother]].
** Missandei also shows signs of being conditioned to the horrors of slavery when she hardly bats an eye at her master mutilating an Unsullied to make a point.
* ''Series/{{Grimm}}'': seeing the GameFace of the Wesen - especially the nastier ones like [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent Blutbaden]] or [[MageSpecies Hexen/Zauberbiests]] - tends to drive normal humans insane. But one can build up a tolerance to it, as testified by Hank, Juliet, and Wu. Similarly, Wesen in GameFace looking at Grimms are almost always scared shitless but working alongside Nick and other reasonable Grimms (that is, Grimms whose first reaction to Wesen is not OffWithHisHead) tends to alleviate this.
* The detectives on ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'' occasionally encounter victims who have become this due to prolonged abuse.
** The most heartbreaking is probably a young mother who was brutally sexually abused by her stepfather. She represses the specific memories, but they've clearly shaped her world view; she refuses to leave her own daughter (who's about the same age she was when the abuse started) alone with an adult male, even when the alternative is leaving the eight-year-old home alone for multiple days straight, because she's convinced any man will rape her daughter if given the chance -- in her mind, that's just the way things are, and the only way to protect said daughter is to never put her in that situation. She's also been through a string of abusive relationships, which she sees as normal.
** In the episode [[RippedFromTheHeadlines based on the Ariel Castro case]], the first girl he kidnapped has become this, to the point where she doesn't immediately see anything wrong with his actions towards her or the other girls.
** A few other episodes involve situations where predators groom children or young adolescents into believing that sexual abuse is an expression of love. In some cases, the victim even sees themselves as being in a relationship with the abuser. One former victim, abused at 15 and now pushing 40, is devastated to find that the older man she believed was the love of her life no longer cares about her because she's too old.
* The [[ApatheticCitizens entire populace of Camden County]] on ''Series/MyNameIsEarl'' are this. Earl's reaction to a suicidal man jumping into a pool is simply "I'll get the hook." No one is concerned that both the richest and most powerful man in town and his successor are total maniacs. The whole reason that Ernie the owner of the [[MyLocal Crab Shack]] went missing was because [[spoiler: nobody thought a doorstop that looked like a nose was unusual, so nobody realized it belonged to Ernie's dead body buried under the cement]].
* ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' episode "Future War" reveals Tom Servo as this. During a drug test, his point of view looks like a DisneyAcidSequence with Mike and Crow as monsters. Servo chuckles and explains it's ''not'' a hallucination, but what he sees everyday.
* This is one of the major themes of ''Series/SpartacusBloodAndSand''. The protagonist is made a slave in the first episode, and is slowly conditioned to accept his situation, to the point where he doesn't even bat an eye when used as a SexSlave in a later episode. When he is finally able to break the conditioning, he then has the difficult task of breaking it on the rest of the slaves to get them to rebel. It remains a factor he has to deal with through the rest of the series, as even after freeing themselves, the ex-slaves mostly have no drive other than to kill all Romans, and getting them to see any other goal is monumentally difficult. Even one of Spartacus' closest friends, Agron, admits privately that he has been a soldier and slave for so long that he cannot imagine a life outside of blood and battle.
* In the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "A Taste Of Armageddon", the entire ''planets'' of Eminiar VII and Vendikar are like this. To wit: [[ForeverWar The planets have been at war with each other for over five hundred years]] [[AMillionIsAStatistic using computers to calculate supposed attacks on each other]]. The people calculated to have "died" in these attacks are given twenty-four hours to report to what are essentially Suicide Booths, leading to thousands of people all the time willfully committing suicide ''en masse!'' Even worse? When Kirk tells them this is wrong, the leader of Eminar VII says ''he's'' the barbarian, offering the argument that a real war would kill more people and destroy civilization generally. Kirk's reply is basically [[WarIsHell "Yup, and that kind of destruction usually forces people to END a war before it goes on for 500 years"]].
* ''Series/WordOfHonor'': As a child Wen Kexing lost his parents, ended up in the Ghost Valley, and was personally [[TrainingFromHell trained]] by the former Master of Ghost Valley. Because of this he's indifferent to violence and bloodshed.

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'': While the ''Abyssal'' sourcebook is full of horrifying things, The Dowager of the Irreverent Vulgate in Unrent Veils takes the cake for invoking this trope. She raises children to be her Abyssal Exalted. She teach them "the pointlessness of existence and hatred for the cruelty of life". The place she raises them, the Mound of Forsaken Seeds? No normal animal nor Fair Folk will get near it without magical compulsion.
* In ''TabletopGame/{{Paranoia}}'', this happens with some citizens of Alpha Complex. Work as a janitor mopping up in the Internal Security Information-Extraction chambers, and after a while you've seen it all.
* The 'Jaded' Trait in ''TabletopGame/DarkHeresy'' indicates a character whose life has been so dark and crappy that they've become entirely immune to fear and SanityMeter hits from 'mundane' horrors that have a natural explanation (such as, say, a very grisly murder scene; seeing an EldritchAbomination in the flesh will still hurt your psyche). There are several character backgrounds that makes your character start with this trait, from being Mind-Wiped to hailing from Volg Hive, a place so violent, dirty and low-down that it basically serves as a garbage pit you throw people too savage to live in a WretchedHive in.
** By extension, ''TabletopGame/{{Deathwatch}}'' invokes this trope due to the player characters being Imperial Space Marines. Part of their training and indoctrination is being conditioned to horror (the Emperor specifically said "and they shall know no fear"), so that even though the mechanic still exists, the Game Master is encouraged to only make the players check sanity for the highest levels of cosmic horrors.
* In ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}'', having the Callous disadvantage along with the Unfazeable or multiple levels of the Fearlessness advantage, and no disadvantages like Pacifism, Phobia or Squeamish, makes a character fitting this trope.
* ''TabletopGame/CallOfCthulhu'' player characters, non-player characters, friends, and foes all alike can, and probably will, become this trope if they didn't already start like this for one reason or another.
** When integrating antagonists and mechanics from the d20 version of the game into the more common ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' or D20 modern settings, the manual recommends either dramatically reducing or leaving out the sanity-erosion mechanic entirely because of this trope. Fantasy adventurers accept weird things beyond their comprehension all the time because it's their job (literally their job for classes like clerics and warlocks).
* Characters exposed to repeated and increasingly traumatic events in ''TabletopGame/UnknownArmies'' will either become gibbering messes, or completely immune to the traumatic stimuli. The latter is noted as being just as much a form of insanity as the former.
* Almost the entire population of Amonkhet in ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering''. Amonkhet is a DaylightHorror take on [[FantasyCounterpartCulture Fantasy Ancient Egypt]] where death is not just accepted, it's actively sought after in difficult trials, with the worthy ''supposedly'' going to a bountiful afterlife; since the [[GodEmperor God-Pharaoh]] is Nicol Bolas this is somewhat unlikely. [[http://media.wizards.com/2017/dw466ytu5_akh/en_mqrKtwlFS3.png Oashra Cultivator]], for example, is a smiling gardener surrounded by flowers, who is casually talking about being "harvested". [[spoiler:In Hour of Devastation, everyone gets a wake-up call as Bolas' agents and army essentially commit genocide.]]
** Tarkir's Atarka Brood is outright stated to be this. Being a clan whose basically glorified waiters to a perpetually hungry and paranoid dragon should drive most people to despair, but they take it in stride.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Visual Novels]]
* Shirou in ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight''. It's hinted at in Fate route with how quickly he adapts to the situation and more or less stated outright at the beginning of UBW. Why did he stay calm when [[spoiler:Shinji tried to melt everyone in the school]]? Because he's used to seeing corpses, which lets him tell them apart from people who are just injured! Isn't it obvious? To explain why he was used to seeing corpses at 18ish, [[spoiler:as a child, he was at ground zero of a magical version of Hiroshima, and the trauma of the explosion meant his first memories were of walking past literally hundreds of burning, melting, screaming very-soon-to-be-corpses]].
* Ayumi comments on this in ''VisualNovel/CorpsePartyD2DepthsOfDespair''. After finding herself back in the cursed schoolhouse, she notes that she hardly feels ''anything'' when examining corpses anymore.
* Due to being born underneath the guillotine and having been surrounded by death all her life due to her curse, Marie from ''VisualNovel/DiesIrae'' sees nothing wrong with decapitating people left and right as it is as natural as breathing to her. Even at her own execution she saw nothing wrong with it and calmly let let herself be killed. And while she never quite loses this mindset, she at the very least starts to understand why people have a problem with it as she herself wants to save what is precious to her.
* Throughout the course of ''VisualNovel/SpiritHunterNG'', Akira grows rather disturbingly accustomed to the spirits haunting him and threatening his life.
-->'''Akira:''' Yeah, a bunch of weird things have happened. I almost died once, too.\\
'''Rosé:''' And yet you seem pretty unfazed.\\
'''Akira:''' Well, obviously, I didn't die.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Animation]]
* ''WebAnimation/EverythingIsBroken'': In part 8 LG Creepybloom shows up in Flippy's mirror again to scare him but Flippy just does not react or care after all the horrible things he went through.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'': When Mechanicsburg, a town long ruled by a dynasty of psychopathic {{Mad Scientist}}s, is under siege the children are sent to the crypts and guarded by undead monstrosities. On seeing a little girl tell off the reanimated corpse of her great-great-great grandpa for embarrassing her the seneschal wonders if growing up in town might havve made them [[https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20110926#.YeCc3FlMFPY a little weird.]]
* Very nearly everyone who lives long enough to develop a discernible personality in ''Webcomic/GoneWithTheBlastwave'', but unlike most of the examples on this page, this is not a result of some kind of supervillain scheme or GovernmentConspiracy. (Well, not as far as we know.) It's just that they've been fighting this apparently [[ForeverWar endless war]] that's [[HopelessWar long past the point of being winnable]] -by ''any'' of the participants- for so long and seen so much death and mutilation and human misery in all its myriad forms that they've become completely desensitised to it all. The more normal squaddies seem to be operating on a mild form of HeroicSafeMode, whilst a couple have descended into outright ComedicSociopathy, and all but the sniper (the closest thing the comic has to an OnlySaneMan) [[DeathSeeker have a highly-developed death wish.]] WarIsHell.
* ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'':
** The trolls live in a brutally SocialDarwinist CrapsackWorld where, had SGRUB not taken place and destroyed the planet, most of them would've probably been culled for being disabled [[spoiler: like Terezi and Tavros]] or low-blooded mutants [[spoiler: like Karkat]]. Daylight brings [[OurVampiresAreDifferent rainbow (blood)-drinkers]] and [[EverythingsDeaderWithZombies the undead]], while they sleep in a tub of tranquilizers to make sure they don't get nightmares from the {{Eldritch Abomination}}s that live in the sea.
** In "[S] Jade Wake Up", [[spoiler: Jade meets Feferi and they both meet, essentially, the "relative" (after passing through a tunnel of similar creatures) of Feferi's lusus. Jade is disturbed while Feferi thinks they're nothing to be scared of since ''the creature that is effectively her foster mother is essentially a small version of the one they encounter''. Feferi's lusus is also the one who killed all the rest of the entire troll species after unleashing a BrownNote of galactic proportions]].
* In ''WebComic/{{Goblins}}'', Biscuit's orc tribe conditions its young to stoically cope with loss by deliberately confiscating each orc child's favorite plaything and destroying it while the child watches. Their conditioning methods seem to be effective, as Biscuit endures [[spoiler:untold years of demonic torture, followed by the loss of his leg]] without complaint or even disappointment. Note that this mindset also compels him to ''help'' someone driven insane by her crippled deformity ''by crippling her even further and telling her to get over losing everything''. This just makes her insanity worse, even though he genuinely thought he was healing her mind.
* Benni from ''Webcomic/ForestHill'' was raised by his [[AbusiveParents abusive father]] to think that ParentalIncest and child prostitution was normal. What he did not accept was being [[RapeByProxy forced to rape other children]], and the physical abuse he took from trying to refuse to do so.
* In ''Webcomic/SleeplessDomain'' a nameless CityOfAdventure is protected at night by teenage {{Magical Girl Warrior}}s who are frequently injured or killed in the line of duty. At least one outside observer is appalled by the residents' "business as usual" attitude towards casualties among their adolescent protectors. Undine also expresses sadness at how ''quickly'' everyone got over the deaths (or loss of powers, in one case) of her friends, with her staring in wide eyed horror at a sign proudly touting that all the Team Alchemical merchandise was now half off.
* Fern Green of ''Webcomic/AwfulHospital'' is a veritable valedictorian of the [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/aaalaurieaaa_4881.jpg Laurie Strode]] [[http://www.bogleech.com/awfulhospital/217.html School]] [[http://www.bogleech.com/awfulhospital/360.html of]] CharacterDevelopment.
-->'''Fern:''' ''[upon seeing a dead clone of herself]'' ...Fine. ''Whatever.''
* ''WebComic/{{Erma}}'': Having grown used to the various horrifying things that Erma either does or attracts, either causally or as part of pranks, most of the recurring cast shrug off the many unnatural things that occur with [[SeenItAll slight shock or annoyance at best]] unless the actual threat of death is involved. This is even used as a plot point in one story arc, where the principal [[spoiler:points this out to a society of rat people that live underneath the school as a sign that the world may be ready to accept them]]. The page image comes from an early strip, with Erma trying to spook her human father, who has naturally gotten used to such antics thanks to his experience raising the little monster with his StringyHairedGhostGirl wife.
* ''Webcomic/TrueVillains'': Six-year-old Mia's OrphansOrdeal background is PlayedForLaughs as she happily joins the VillainProtagonist, and she's a cheerful [[ThePollyanna Pollyanna]] on his team, but hints of the horrors she's endured come through when she murders a woman with the same childlike satisfaction she'd find in winning a board game.
-->'''Villager:''' You killed the Chosen One!\\
'''Mia:''' ''[Confused]'' Yeah? So what? People die all the time.
* ''Webcomic/{{Unsounded}}'': In the Gefendur religion twins are taken from their parents, placed in service to a temple and, when they turn 22, one of them is [[HumanSacrifice ritually killed]] and ''cannibalised.'' The twins not only know this is going to happen but are fully aware ''which'' one of them is going to get the chop, and they regard it as a great honour. However the practice of 'kept twins' does creep out certain otherwise devout believers, such as Sette, Matty and Jivi.
* Atshi of ''Webcomic/AnecdoteOfError'' suffers from a recurring nightmare of a [[EldritchAbomination fiery demon]] dismembering a girl who looks just like her, and even [[spoiler: has these visions while awake]], but this has gone on for so long that they no longer affect her anymore.
* ''Webcomic/IDontWantThisKindOfHero'': It becomes clear that Raptor has a rather different standard of what's acceptable and what isn't, especially relating to her own experiences. For one, she doesn't consider her past as a {{Child Soldier|s}} or her master's abuse to be traumatizing, simply because she has no real understanding of anything else/as far as she's concerned, it could've been worse—to which Haze points out that even if she wasn't ''leashed'', she was still treated as subhuman.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* ''WebVideo/TheCinemaSnob'':
** Played for laughs. At this point, when he shuts his eyes and thinks of something happy, he sees the village-burning scene from ''Film/CannibalHolocaust'' -- not because it cheers him up, but because he's seen so many disturbing films that it's his ''baseline''. (The scene also comes to him unbidden when he listens to beautiful music.)
** In the ''WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall'' movie, he brings ''Salo'' to Linkara's movie watching party and is clearly having the time of his life while everyone else is horrified beyond words.
* ''Literature/HowToSurviveCamping'': Kate has been prepared to take over the campsite her whole life, which, combined with the monstrous beings and occasional casualties she has to deal with on a regular basis, has left her mostly unfazed by most of the horrors occurring around her. Even having to [[UnscrupulousHero commit murder herself]] appears to be an unfortunate necessity at worse for her.
** This actually plays out in her favor when facing [[spoiler:the master of the vanishing house]], after it has assumed the form of a [[EldritchAbomination monstrous, mutilated human-deer hybrid, with a gaping, slimy mouth splitting its body]]:
---> '''[[spoiler:The master]]:''' Do you fear me now?
---> '''Kate:''' Buddy, you are asking the wrong person. I have a dead girl knocking on my window every single night and every morning I get to listen to her be dragged off by a monstrous beast. And that’s probably among the ''least'' of the horrific things I’ve witnessed.
* Agents in ''Blog/{{LISDEAD}}'' are[[spoiler: conditioned right down to their exact personality]] and while some like Dramatic Detective don't entirely seem to ''like'' it, they at least put up with it because it's ''useful''
* WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic's DarkAndTroubledPast has caused him to be biased in this way, like when he's telling off the boy in ''Film/{{North}}'' for having a panic attack because apparently every set of parents violently argue at the dinner table.
* [[ReligionOfEvil Pidanayana Buddhism]] in the dystopian science fiction work ''Literature/AdAstraPerAspera'' is a corrupted form of Buddhism that teaches that suffering is the key to Enlightenment.
* ''Podcast/WelcomeToNightVale'':
** Night Vale's citizens are totally aware of and undisturbed by the maniacal City Council, the possibly demonic mayor, the Sheriff's SecretPolice, the [[TheMenInBlack vague, yet menacing government agencies]], the sinister [[InTheHood Hooded Figures]], the AlienGeometries of the dog park and radio station, and countless other vaguely Lovecraftian horrors. If you see something, say nothing and drink to forget.
** Two-parter episode ''The Sandstorm'' reveals that [[spoiler:Night Vale's seemingly pleasant and cheerful rival city Desert Bluffs]] is actually even worse, both in terms of horror and in terms of their acceptance of it.
* The protagonists of ''Literature/{{Twig}}'' are artificially created children who hunt mad scientists in order to help maintain the information monopoly of an AcademyOfEvil, and so they are often deceptively cheerful in going about their business. They're having fun, challenging themselves, and fulfilling their intended purposes, after all - why wouldn't they be happy?
* ''Website/NotAlwaysRight'': [[http://notalwaysright.com/we-with-consoles-are-always-ready-to-console/22791 This kid]] was way too calm considering his mother went psychotic earlier.
-->'''Writer:''' Little boy, how are you just so calm in all this?\\
'''Customer's Son:''' This isn’t the first time this has happened. Last time, she [[GroinAttack kicked someone where it hurts a lot]], ’cause he fell over crying and stuff.
* ''WebVideo/DaisyBrown'''s first video shows her casually illustrating how she feeds Alan, a BodyHorror monstrosity made by [[MadScientist her father]]. Her third video has her explain she didn't realize that monsters weren't exactly commonplace, hence her calm demeanor around Alan. For the most part, his weirdness doesn't really affect her. [[spoiler:Well, until he starts growing, at least.]]
* ''WebVideo/TheMusicVideoShow'' had some spades of this. In [[https://youtu.be/PiWRiFz_fGM Episode 3]], the host was scared of the stop motion, smaller version of Music/SouljaBoy due to its [[Main/UncannyValley Uncanny Valley]] attributes. Cut to the Big Bad Wolf [[https://youtu.be/DL8OTb0w0ho episode]] and the [[Main/NightmareFuel Nightmare Fuel]] in the music video. [[spoiler:Averted in the Final Thoughts...maybe]]
--> "So this is what a midlife crisis feels like..."
* Unlike most AnalogHorror series, where the episode either show the horror happening in real time, in ''WebVideo/GeminiHomeEntertainment'', [[NothingIsScarier the horror already happened]]. As soon as "World's Weirdest Animals" begins, we're thrusted into a world of people who know [[CosmicHorrorStory exactly what is happening]] and are still trying to function in a new and corrupted reality, where very bizarre [[BotanicalAbomination plants]], [[AnimalisticAbomination animals]], and [[EldritchAbomination other... things]] have already settled down.
* ''WebVideo/TheMonumentMythos:'' The world, and the USA in particular, seem entirely used to and worryingly familiar with catastrophic supernatural events. If you have a relative that was fed to the creature under the Statue of Liberty you may be entitled to financial compensation, people are entirely aware the Grand Canyon is full of walking headless corpses and giant, rotten flying heads, and when the Suez Canal Crab crisis happened, people weren't terrified of a gigantic crab-like monstrosity emerging from the canal, but rather pissed off at the USA for waking it up with all the hands-off outrage of a Twitter hashtag.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'': The frogs largely understand and accept that their world is a DeathWorld and more often than not embrace death with open arms. For example, when Anne fakes being sick, the Plantars are actually very quick to accept that they're going to die.
* ''WesternAnimation/KipoAndTheAgeOfWonderbeasts'': In "[[Recap/KipoAndTheAgeOfWonderbeastsS1E08TwinBeaks Twin Beaks]]", the raccoons have come to calmly accept that their home is going to constantly come under attack by a giant monster that they can't stop. This is shown when the bird in question breaks through the ceiling and eats a pair of raccoons, and the rest just keep pedaling without even missing a beat. It takes the characters some work to trick them into helping themselves and break this worldview.
* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'': In "Ghost Host", the Flying Dutchman makes a habit of scaring [=SpongeBob=] while he stays with him while his ship gets repaired. Over time, [=SpongeBob=] gets less scared of the Dutchman's antics to the point where he becomes unfazed at even his most elaborate horrors.
* In ''[[WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy Billy & Mandy's Big Boogie Adventure]]'', Grim manages to obtain Horror's Hand, which requires someone to face their greatest fears, because he faces his worst fears every day: [[WithFriendsLikeThese being around Billy and Mandy]].
* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'':
** Pearl likes to wax lyrical about Gem culture, despite it psychologically oppressing [[FantasticCasteSystem her people]] and causing her inferiority complex. Much of her character arc is about Pearl bridging the dissonance between what she ''actually'' feels and what Gem society says she "should" feel.
** Steven himself shows signs of this in a few episodes, bouncing back from encountering all sorts of dangerous things as he gains more experience adventuring with the Crystal Gems. In "Space Race", Pearl apologizes for dragging him along on a test flight in a home-made spaceship and nearly getting the both of them killed, and Steven shrugs it off with "I'm used to it." Other episodes, however, show that Steven's [[StepfordSmiler not dealing with things as well as he lets on]]. It comes to a head in ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverseFuture'', [[Recap/StevenUniverseFutureS1E14GrowingPains where the dangers of normalizing trauma]] [[{{Deconstruction}} are shown in full force]].
* Rick from ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'', as a result of his genius and experiencing all kinds of fucked up scenarios [[TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow man was not meant to know]], has become detached and very cynical about pretty much everything. Later on, Morty and the other Smiths become more numb to the horrors of the multiverse as such things become more habitual.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheRealGhostbusters'': WordOfGod states that this is the reason the Ghostbusters were able to look at [[Franchise/CthulhuMythos Cthulhu]] (or rather, [[TyopOnTheCover Cathulu]]) without going insane. Their job has already forced them to come to terms with the existence of countless other {{Eldritch Abomination}}s -- to them, Cathulhu is just another deity to bust, if one so powerful that [[spoiler:their proton packs barely scratch it and it takes 100 gigavolts of lightning just to put it back to sleep]].
* PlayedForLaughs in ''WesternAnimation/MiloMurphysLaw:'' the title character was BornUnlucky, and has come to cheerfully accept the weird and dangerous things that are going to happen to him every day. His family and friends also fall into this trope, due to [[TheJinx having to cope with every disaster alongside him]]. This is most evident in Zack, a LogicalLatecomer who becomes Milo's friend in the first episode:
-->'''Zack:''' AAAGGGHHH--wait, why aren't ''you'' screaming?!\\
'''Milo:''' I find it doesn't help. Just hurts the larynx.
* Though it's an example of BlackComedy to us, can we take a moment to consider how society in ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' got to [[WeWillHaveEuthanasiaInTheFuture the point where suicide is so widespread that they even found a way to capitalize on it with Suicide Booths]] and that no-one in the setting calls attention to them?
* On ''WesternAnimation/{{Disenchantment}}'' the population of Dreamland is disturbingly indifferent to the widespread plague in their city. The "Plague Patrol" that picks up corpses to be dumped in a pit and burned is treated as just another worker on the streets. Bunty even cheerfully talks about cleaning up one of her children before having him thrown in the pit, along with his little friends.
* Most veteran adventurers, villains, and henchmen in ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBros'' are generally unphased by horrible death and dismemberment, shrugging it off as little more than an occupational hazard. Specific example when Rusty is mind-controlled and forced to attempt suicide repeatedly for hours. While the isolation and powerlessness would be enough to break an average person's will, Rusty explains that his childhood trauma has inured him to such mental anguish. Helping immensely is that compared to most other boy adventurers? Rusty was able to live a functional life in spite of his trauma.
* The citizens of Apokolips in ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'' have been so thoroughly crushed by ComicBook/{{Darkseid}}'s tyranny that when Superman defeats him and tells them to DoWithHimAsYouWill, they immediately rush to Darkseid's side to help him get medical treatment rather than comprehend life without him.
* In the final season of ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'', the Daughters of Aku have been raised and trained from birth to hold the Samurai’s death more important than anything else, including their own and each other’s lives.
* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'': The original version of Harley Quinn seems to have a case of this (mixed with a fair amount of StockholmSyndrome), as she even has a musical number in one episode where she talks about the various ways the Joker abuses her and [[TheWoobie how she can't bring herself to leave him so has decided to just put up with it.]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'', every parent in town except [[OnlySaneMan Sharon Marsh]] regarding school shootings.
* In ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'', this is how the citizens of Equestria feel about most random monster attacks. ''Slice of Life'' has them feeling mildly inconvenienced at worst by a bugbear attack.
-->'''Matilda:''' Come on! We better get to the salon before that monster flattens it!
-->'''Bon Bon:''' What was that?
-->'''Lyra:''' There's some monster attacking Ponyville or something.
-->'''Bon Bon:''' What is it this time? A creature from the Everfree Forest?
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Jellystone}}'': Doggie Daddy at one point asks if he's being too smothering to Augie, whose response heavily implies that she's so accustomed to his behavior that she can't process anything unusual about it.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* As a general rule, this can apply to anything from an abusive childhood to residents in a war-torn area dealing with bombings. Not accepting it in this manner would likely lead to some serious SanitySlippage.
* In the US, many people seem to have been desensitized to mass shootings, enough that every time one happens, ''Website/TheOnion'' can repost the article "[[https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1846494525 'No Way To Prevent This', Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens]]" and only have to change the location and number of victims.
* Professionals as well rely on this as a coping mechanism. Soldiers, police officers, paramedics, firefighters, you name it, often fall into this either by [[GallowsHumor jokingly evoking it]] to poke fun at crappy taskings or exercises, or seriously relying on it to [[TearJerker deal with actual horrors they experience]].
* From the 17th to the 19th century, sailors that were PressGanged or willingly accepted a position aboard a slave ship [[FallenOnHardTimesJob out of sheer need,]] reported that on their first voyage to Africa, they felt incredibly guilty over the fact that they were being forced to chain up and cram as many horrified people into the cargo hold as possible, watch as the higher ranking crewmen beat the captives mercilessly or raped them. However, as the voyage went on, the new sailors began to accept that capturing people and selling them as cattle was just another part of the job, and didn't even flinch when the captives were severely flogged by their superiors, or when they did it themselves. [[ItGetsEasier Some even joined in future enslaving expeditions]].
* There are [[AbusivePrecursors quite a few horrific things that our ancestors did]] that most people at the time just accepted as "the way it is" (be it slavery, public executions, burning people at the stake, etc). Thankfully many of those things have either been abolished or at least made morally unacceptable enough that they are illegal in most places. It's also highly likely that our descendants will regard some things ''we'' consider normal and acceptable with the same degree of visceral horror most people today have for things like slavery or burning people alive.
* Indeed, this happens to people even with a charmed life. Due to a lack of experience and emotional regulation, something mundane can feel as if it is the worst thing that ever happened to a person. It’s only when they grow up that they accept these day to day inconveniences.
[[/folder]]

%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1652506073008590800

[[quoteright:350:[[Webcomic/{{Erma}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/erma_conditionedtoaccepthorror01.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:No one ever said parenthood was easy.]]

* The residents of ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'' largely understand and accept that their world is a DeathWorld and more often than not embrace death with open arms. For example, when Anne faked being sick the Plantars were actually very quick to accept that they were going to die.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' episode "Ghost Host", the Flying Dutchman makes a habit of scaring [=SpongeBob=] while he stays with him while his ship gets repaired. Over time, [=SpongeBob=] gets less scared of the Dutchman's antics to the point where he becomes unfazed at even his most elaborate horrors.

** To be fair that's the sane way to regard them. They're an incredibly rare event that is tragic, but so are literally dozens of black men killing each other ever week. That mass shootings are mentioned at all is only due to American being this regarding black deaths.