#tw skeletal

[madarasgirl]

His Immortal

Permission to use art from the INCREDIBLY talented @vanerchest. Feeling very honoured! I think about this piece often whenever I write Alucard angst.

C/W: Alucard (Ultimate) x senior!Reader, angst, on death and dying, hospital setting, hurt/no comfort, shadow writing. Inspired by the legendary song "My Immortal" by Evanescence Words: 998

You supposed you were the one who was selfish for choosing this mortal fate and leaving your greatest love behind.

Did you regret this path? Sometimes you thought perhaps you did. There would have been tons to gain by becoming an ageless vampire at his side, and on occasion, you used to speculate 'what if?'

It didn't matter. It was far too late to backtrack anyways, and it would be an insult to do so, after living such a beautiful, full lifetime spent with Alucard, teeming with precious memories and magical experiences. He aged with you through the decades –at least he made it so his appearance did.

But as with all mortals who lived long enough, you too eventually grew very old, frail, and sick. Your body betrayed you and no longer belonged to you. It didn't obey when you wanted to walk, speak, eat, or even breathe.

So here you lay in a hospital bed, intubated and sedated, machines replacing the function of vital organs while multiple drugs dripped nonstop to hold you captive in this realm. What a sight you made, with tubes protruding from every corner on your skeletal form.

Your body may have failed, but fortunately you never developed dementia. Your mental faculties were as crisp as the night you met so long ago. A piece of you was still buried within, floating from above and somehow aware of the happenings around you in your comatose state.

The various alarms and buzzing were only background noises by now, and there was little commotion this time as well, but you felt a sense of relief. Sighing inwardly, you wished Alu would leave your side for a moment so you could just die already, though you knew that was an empty hope. The vampire had not parted from the bedside your entire stay.

Was he scaring the nurses by crying again? You hoped he'd remember to make them forget this time. And not to terrorize the staff and force them to do whatever it took anymore. You recalled the time you surfaced with another set of thick tubes in your neck and groin, and how painful they were. How frightening it was.

"You must live," he whispered to you at night at first. For his sake. So you did, trapped in the confines of your weathered shell, you continued to exist for him, slowly spiralling downhill until now.

With any other man, you'd be helpless to communicate in your vegetative state, but Alucard had never been as mediocre as 'normal.' So you begged him through telepathy. After all these years, reaching for his mind was as easy as sifting through your own thoughts, as natural as breathing (well, back when you were still able to do so independently). You implored him again to let you go. You were terminal and old, with no hope for recovery or any good prognosis. Being connected to every form of life support was not life, just a sad fate that prolonged your suffering and delayed your inevitable expiration.

Long ago, he promised not to let you suffer.

Alu, please don't make them bring me back again when my heart stops.

The weary, congested muscle thudded weakly towards failure. You were already dead in every way except you still possessed vital signs. The numbers were just evidence of the drugs, transfusions, and machines at work though.

The irony wasn't lost on you. At the end of the road, after declining his many offers to turn you when you were a maiden, you were finally just like Alucard, the living dead. You'd laugh if you could.

...More than anything, you didn't want him to see you like this, a husk of the vibrant woman you once were when you fell for each other. The unlikely circumstances of your meeting and scenes from your life flashed by in an instant. The vampire would tell you throughout the decades, when he'd get in one of his romantic moods, that you'd always be his sprightly young woman no matter your age. He actually only told you again yesterday. Or was it last week? 

How long have you been laying here?

The mind's eye saw his seated figure clearly and smiled. Actually, your tired mind pondered, you certainly did not regret a moment of your life with Alucard. He was the perfect partner and his unchecked devotion never gave you a reason to regret choosing him. Your lifespan was too short for that, he used to tell you.

But you regretted leaving him behind to be alone once more.

--------------------

Your heart stopped. And he loved you enough to let you go.

You were free.

Your spirit lifted from the prison of your flesh and you soared, wrapping around your love with your incorporeal form, sinking into him and caressing the unbeating heart that had ever belonged to you. This time, you wiped away the blood tears that fell.

You quivered.

Liberated from the pains and illnesses of advanced age, it was as if you'd become new and for the first time ever, like the fog lifted and you could finally see with clarity. Your non-existent chest tightened at the sight of your love crushed by your death, looking utterly devastated and lost. There was no sobbing or outward breakdown, but you knew his expressions well.

Nebulous fingers smoothed over inky black locks while you cradled his cheek. Glistening eyes the colour of polished rubies stared blankly at your lifeless corpse, your chest still rising and falling mechanically before the ventilator was turned off. He could not feel your soothing touch anymore and it broke you.

...

You will watch over your vampire from above and wait for him for the rest of your eternity, until he returned to dust and was no more. Then you'd meet him wherever he ended up. Just as he was, you were bound by the life you left behind.

And even if he was unaware, he still had all of you.

~End~

(For more angsty romance, check out my one-shot “Without You” on AO3. Warning: Smut abounds in that one. It is about the occasion when Reader chooses to remain human for her remaining days with Alucard. You will find similar themes to this short scene)

[gearbroth]

s3 theory belos doodles

[victorianvampyr]

Despite being in the vulture culture community for a long time- I ain’t ever actually caped a deer before. Mostly because roadkill is my main source of supply, and I didn’t get a freezer until a few years ago.

Imagine my surprise when my mom called me up saying there was a deceased doe in our neighborhood.

Anyways, the entire process of getting this little lady preserved involved lots of blood, sweat, and tears. Mainly blood though. Many of her insides have been preserved, her pelt tanned(which can be seen in a previous post), and as you can see here- her head mounted and displayed. While processing her carcass, a friend and I discovered she was pregnant. Next week is when the preservation of her fawn will be fully complete and ready for display.

There are plenty of things in this form that I can improve on, but over all I am happy with the result. I have learned so much and I cannot wait to apply it to my next animal. Though she had a rough life, I hope I can give her and her baby a beautiful death :)) I am taking name requests if anyone has some.

Shout out to @bigolbuzzard for helping me get her into the truck!

[steam-beasts]

Common Tank engine skeleton! Before and after!

(Thomas)

Before GD fever;

After GD fever;

Took a bit of inspiration from @monstersteam 's post about Edward's insides. Just did the skeletal structure. I excluded the tail since there was no room.

[micewithknives]

Out of Context Archaeology Quotes - Skeletal Edition

You cant rely on wisdom teeth to do anything at all

Sometimes you look at a skeleton and you’re like ‘oof that not good’ (said with absolute respect by one of my lecturers in an archaeology of health and disease class (absolutely fascinating 10/10 loved))

in true academic form why use ‘fall’ when you can use ‘vertical deceleration event’ (About Lucy, and now lives in my mind rent free)

if you didnt have these joints you would just be *dramatic sigh* a pile of wet noodles

if you're a female and an adult your bone density is going to be TRASHED

there is a category called "fragmentary remains" this is... not ideal

"Yknow this area kinda looks like Lake Mungo" "no, no, no, no, no, no, you're not allowed to say that. Somebody already said the 'B word' on site. You're not allowed to think that"

[30 minutes earlier] "It really does look like the kind of landforms that have a lot of burials present" *6'3 archaeologist gets tackled the 5' one for making such comments*

ALWAYS remember that these were, and still are, people

[birbbones]

Stillborn Boston Terrier skeleton.

Cleaned from raw via Oxidation

[featherymainffins]

*Trigger warning for eating disorder talk*

I hate how whenever I eat anything my brain is like "You should kill yourself. Now." Like what's your fucking problem

[fluffytimearts]

Blue Blood Heart

"Oh my, I think you're holding the heart of mine.

Squeeze it apart.

That's fine."

[jl-art]

“Fragments of Nightmares”

03.22.23

Submitted for “The Dream Makers Perpetual Playground” art exhibit last Saturday, March 25 at Imajin: Arts and Music.

It’s a compilation of all the monsters I’ve dreamt over the years. Looking forward to more nightmares (for free monster designs haha)

[eorzeashan]

the reason why I hc Jadus as faceless/refuse to imagine them behind the mask is imo there's no face in the world (especially attractive ones) that could be "scary" or embody pure fear, and typical designs that try to be scary are usually just biased towards the fear of unconventional looks like excessive scarring. a void for a face is much scarier than someone you'd feel attracted to or anyone remotely humanized, and I think embodying fear has to be removed from that. for example, Marr having a rather kindly datamined face after swtor lore said an officer committed suicide seeing it just comes off as....odd.

[monstrslair]

new sona/oc?

[femmesandhoney]

this lake sturgeon was not having a good day besties...

[art-of-wackylurker]

Well since I already had a pencil in hand...

@engagemythrusters our boi is here

[panicbones]

man i love weed dont get me wrong but i really dont like hanging with ppl who are stoned all the time and when i tell ppl that they act like im being a killjoy like? no? i equally dislike when ppl are drunk off their ass. im allowed to be uncomfortable with substance use

[overlyimmersed]

I wanna talk about wings

Just in general, rather than any specific Fairy's wings this time.

SO I was gonna a make a post comparing Fairy wings to irl insect wings, but the most I learned about insect wings the more I found I actually didn't have the point I thought I did, so I scrapped that. But I still wanna talk about stuff so.

I now know a lot about bug wings! which are way more complicated than you might think... They look like they're just "dead" material like keratin on mammalian bodies, BUT NO. Chitin is significantly different actually. It's more flexible than keratin is for one thing. And insect wings are actually made of "cuticle" which is different layers of chitin put next to each other. The veins of insect wings can have "blood" flow and even nerves. So wings are actually kinda living structures. The membrane between the veins does seem to be comparable to keratin, in that it doesn't have the blood flow or nerves. But still it's chitin so it's flexible.

Why was I looking this stuff up? Cuz when Harlequin kills Helbram for the first time and he falls over, his wings look very...fabric-y and that always bothered me cuz I always thought insect wings were more rigid then that. But apparently not. Nakaba may have trouble with human anatomy but apparently he knows more about wings than I do :p.

But anyway, since that always bothered me, and my general obsession with fairy wings, I'm always paying a lot of attention to how the fairy characters' wings move in the anime and in the grand cross mobile game to compare them to each other and look for consistency. I run a full fairy team in Grand Cross consisting of Helbram, Harlequin and Gerheade. I also have Gloxinia and Elaine so I can look at their wings too when need be. So I get a lot of time to observe the wing movements. And there are significant differences between the fairies that have starkly different wing structures. And I suppose I have a theory as to why?

As far as I can tell, the reason for the sharp difference in how the wings move between, say my main 3, had to do with the vein configurations of each fairy's wings. Harlequin, Helbram and Gerheade all have different vein configurations from each other. I took some videos of every fairy's grand cross models during idle movements, as well as when they have an attack ready, to show the differences in the movement.

These two have to be separate cuz when you select an action for all three the battle proceeds.

We already know Helbram has substantial flexibility to his wings. Harlequin's wings move and flex about the same way an irl butterfly's do, which is a moderate amount of flexibility. Gerheade's wings seem to be markedly stiffer. If you look at the vein configurations of each fairy's wings, which are better illustrated in the anime than the 3D models, you can see that they are very different.

Gerheade and Harlequin both have very insectoid looking wings, because to veins fork to create cells like irl bugs. Helbram though, doesn't have any cells in his wings, he only has vertical veins that don't fork at all. And between Gerheade and Harlequin, Harlequin's wings have larger cells in general as well as large central cells.

I'm inclined to believe these differences in the number and size of the cells formed by the veins are what causes the difference in flexibility. Since Gerheade has smaller cells, the veins are closer together giving her a more rigid structure, while Helbram lacks cells altogether so he has very little structure over all, giving his wings are more fabric-like movement. Harlequin is somewhere in the middle. Gloxinia and Elaine fall into the same category as Harlequin as they both have very much butterfly-like wings which have the large and small cell configuration.

All this being said, I still don't actually want to believe that Fairy wings are made of chitin. Simply cuz I don't know if that makes sense. Based on the very limited information we have about reproduction, it seems that Fairies are mammals? And mammals don't make chitin. We do, however, make cartilage. Which is a material that offers comparable flexible/semi-rigid structure to chitin. Like your outer ear. That structure is cartilaginous, you can just fold that right over on itself and it doesn't even hurt. But it still hold it's structure all on it's own. So the headcanon that I've held from the beginning is that Fairy wings are actually cartilage and some kind of skin. I drew a diagram for this when I was figuring out how the wings attach.

The dark grey indicates cartilage

My theory/headcanon is that when Fairies get their wings a fully cartilaginous ball-and-socket joint forms attached to the inner edge of the shoulder blades and underlying ribs. The veins are cartilaginous structures, while the membrane is skin. So, unlike with insectoid wings, if you damage the membrane of a Fairy wing it'll bleed. But, also unlike insect wings, Fairy wings can heal since they're fully living tissue with blood supply through the entirety of the structure rather than just in the veins like insect wings.

[divineprank]

Hello everyone! ♥ 

Sorry for the lack of activity from me on this side of my blog! I just wanted to give you a small update and let you know what’s going on. Allow me to warn you that the following will contain descriptive mentions of chronic pain, advanced arthritis, skeletal injury, spinal injury, paralysis, shoulder dislocation, surgery, and shoulder replacement surgery. I am a caregiver for my physically disabled mother who normally struggles quite a bit with her usual physical limitations. Twenty years ago, she was in a horrible accident that left her partially paralyzed from an incomplete spinal cord break. She can walk and talk and feed herself, but she’s quite limited in her daily life and she is often in a lot of pain as a result. 

Unfortunately, as she’s grown older, she has developed arthritis in her left shoulder, like many of us do. Sadly, it’s progressed to a point that her arm has literally dislocated itself. You see, she has stage IV arthritis -- this is the worst “grade” your arthritis can be rated. Having stage IV arthritis means that the cartilage has completely worn down and now the bone has been grinding against bone. What this means for her is her shoulder bones have ground against each other so much that it is no longer physically possible for her arm to remain locked in her shoulder joint where it belongs naturally. Because of how bad her arthritis is, reducing the shoulder dislocation--that is, to set the arm back into place--is impossible. There is literally nothing for her skeleton to lock together, the shape of her shoulder anatomy has been permanently altered due to the progression of her arthritis. Since they can’t pop her arm back into place, she is facing a total shoulder replacement. Right now she is in an immense amount of pain and her usual limitations have been amplified ten-fold. So, I’ve been really busy with helping my already-limited mother maneuver life around basically having only one arm, as well as trying to manage her terrible pain until we can get this surgery taken care of. We’re almost there, she just needs a medical clearance from her lung doctor because she just got over COVID. 

To those of you who are waiting on the asks you sent me, and to those who are expecting some older threads I have drafted: I am still here, I am still present and I definitely want to write with you guys. Ganondorf’s muse is on fire and I want to be a pyromaniac! But things will be a bit slow from my end for a little while. I’ve just got a lot going on at home right now, haha.  Please don’t let that discourage you from reaching out, though! Even though it sounds like I’ve got a lot going on, writing is one of my favorite ways to decompress, so I’m still VERY open to receiving asks, getting tagged and talking through IMs (or Discord with mutuals!) right now! Plus, I’ll definitely still be chipping away at what I owe you guys! I’m hoping to get a bunch done by this weekend! But yeah! All this craziness aside, I am normally kind of a slow RPer, but with the situation at hand, I know I’m going to be even slower, so I’m writing this because I’m a little paranoid that I’m coming across as aloof. I want to be open and honest with you guys in case it seemed like I was procrastinating or ignoring anyone! Thanks for reading; I appreciate your understanding and I hope you all have a great night! :)