#the longer this takes the more victims there will be

[nebula-nonhuman]

(preface: cluster B-wise, I have diagnosed BPD and from conversations with therapists and my therapy group and people with NPD, it seems that I have a fair share of NPD traits. Which isn't uncommon. My friend has NPD with a lot of BPD traits.)

The question marks because my splitting has been pretty mild for the last year or two and also because I'm unsure if it counts if I can double book keep? Like I usually feel like someone is super ideal and can do no wrong ever but I can recall their "bad habits" and flaws just fine if I force myself to, I just can't change the emotions. And I don't think I feel victimised (or like. I assume it doesn't count if you feel like you deserve it aka if you don't actually feel like a victim) per se but I do feel misunderstood a lot of the time but in a good way. My fears usually concern being understood. Also while I do partake in behaviour I do consider potentially self damaging, I know the exact way the criterion is worded in DSM-V and I know that I don't fit it.

Question marks either because I don't understand (define "often") or because it's something I do only in specific situations (I DO like being the center of attention and when I am I expect the attention to be on me and me only, but it has to be a scripted interaction. I hate being noticed in an average encounter. I'm supposed to be in the spotlight when I'm in a debate competition and speaking, when I'm giving a presentation as my final, when I'm playing theatre, when I'm hosting an event. But I hate when people try to make the situation deviate from the script. If I'm the organisator, I am supposed to be noticed as an organisator. I will not take part in a conversation with you and the me who is suited for a conversation is not the me who is suited for the spotlight. If I am forced to become the other I will no longer be capable of being in the spotlight, and the me who takes part in conversations is afraid of conversations anyways. My point is don't go off script and keep your eyes on me and everyone will enjoy whatever the hell the event du jour is.) or something I used to do much more in the past (I DO exaggerate my achievements but these days usually only when the urge to one-up others kicks in or when they don't have a sufficient reaction to my honest statement). And we've been over the "misunderstanding" thing.

??? - what does that mean. Not yes or no because I am stupid and have no idea what exactly is meant by that and what counts.

Also actually had a problem with the stress and anxiety one. As far as I know it only counts if you aren't stressed in normal and abnormal situations. But I tend to get stressed in everyday situations but when push comes to shove I just go "Oh well. I am The Responsible One now (usually because I look around and estimate that I am the best person for the job or that nobody else would be capable of being responsible and putting their panic or stress aside)." and experience no emotions whatsoever. Also I compulsively lie all the time ngl. For literally no reason. I'll just say something and then go "That's literally not true, I have no idea why I said that."

Made for fun, don't use as a tool for self diagnosis. 🎼

[chaifootsteps]

actually realistic AU that deals with domestic violence / abuse far better than the show does:

things go on as they are now with Stolas being ungrateful and being a drain on Blitzo's business

Blitzo begins to loose patience with this and point out Stolas isn't helping himself this way, and he's hurting IMP by being such a lousy receptionist. if he doesn't want that, why doesn't he go out and get another job?

and Stolas whines and plays victim about how hard it is to be poor and so hated and he barely even has to imply it's Blitzo's fault to make him feel guilty about it

and Blitzo keeps trying because isn't love and intimacy what he wanted, the thing that would fix him? and he begins to feel it's more of him being Stolas' servant again. every once in a while Stolas does something condescending and if Blitzo tries to point it out, the cycle starts up all over again

finally he's so beat down and miserable that he tries to find someone to talk to, but no one gets it. isn't Stolas just broken up about Via? maybe royals take longer to recover from being moody wrecks because they're long-lived?

he goes out to avoid going home to Stolas, feeling that's a place Stolas has co-opted and he can't feel safe or happy there anymore and finally admits the thing he has been trying to avoid:

he doesn't love Stolas. And he wants him to leave.

but how can he ask for that, after everything Stolas did for him?

in desperation he finds himself searching all over for the one person who might understand enough to help: Striker. he fears the cowboy will hear he's been living with Stolas and putting up with him for months and judge him for it

but Striker takes one look at him and gives him the type of hug Stolas has been withholding all this time

and he apologizes for his testimony at the trial - not just for what he had to lie about, but for the fact it didn't even work: Stolas got a slap on the wrist, which Striker figures he should have seen coming

then they cook up a plan to get Stolas out of his life for good

[noxiousgrace]

In my mind i keep assuming krs spent his entire life alone and surviving on his own

But that isn't the case, there's clearly proof that he was at some level helped by other people

He mentions it often

He was saved by social workers from his uncle when he was a kid

LSH saved his life

Grandma kim always looked after him like her own son while LSH was gone

CJS and LSH died for him

And so many other incidents

But why does it feel like he's still all alone?

I think his tendency to self isolate is why i keep assuming he survived on his own, when he very much didn't.

Everyone fails him or leaves him eventually, he ends up all alone so often that it's hard for me to think about krs as someone who's had support.

He's had the rug pulled out from underneath him so many times, that it no longer shocks him anymore (take chapter 1-3 for example, he was so chill about waking up in another world and stated he didn't have anyone who he'd miss

But that isn't true either, krs spent 10-ish years of his life as team leader and protected his coworkers time and time again, of course people would miss him. In elisehns illusion, Kim Min Ah and Bae Puh Rum came to check up on krs who hadn't returned to work.

While he mentions the physical support and companionship he's received from other people, his mental wounds run too deep.

He keeps a very clinical count of who he owes and who owes him in return, support is not a familial thing to him, it's transactional

The biggest reason grandma Kims death affected him so much was that he owed her A LOT, she was always quick to have his back and support him, Willing to treat his bruises over and over again despite her ability being limited.

Same with CJS and LSH, they supported him more than his own family ever did (parents dead and an abusive uncle), he was devastated that he couldn't spend the rest of his life with them in order to "pay back" all of their kindness so far.

He doesn't feel responsible for their deaths, but he feels responsible for every opportunity he lost to care about them in return. He mourns the future he could've had with them and the happiness krs could've brought to CJS and LSH.

"you can't smooth things over with the dead" is something he said in the novel, around the time choi han figures out who he is and krs is ready for CH to be extremely upset with him.

Krs!Cale feels responsible for everyone who shows kindness to him, a part of it is because whenever someone has cared about him, his heart always cared about them in return. And krs caring about people caused them to get hurt, that's why he feels the need to protect them so that they don't fall victim to krs' affection, and he actually has enough time with them for their "kindness" to be evened out.

This is why he's annoyed when his group grows larger and larger because of his subconscious altruism, there's so many opportunities for all of them to get hurt before he's done caring about them to the amount he thinks is acceptable, it worries his emotionally stunted heart.

Anywho, i think he feels alone to me because of how little he opens up to other people. He is a self isolating king and manages to be the most famous man ever.

I want him to open up that scarred heart of his and finally allow himself to be loved beyond transactions.

[nshtn]

I love writing Wesker with a little touch of what he seems to hate so much... humanity.

The one core aspect of his persona is that he was manufactured - abused - created.

The Executive Training School intended to produce sets of controllable psycho-sociopaths - a class worth. Human beings, more complex than tools, rarely turn out how they are meant to - neither Birkin nor Wesker were controllable.

Lisa Trevor was a threat and an intimidation tactic as much as she was an experiment - "this will be you if you don't do what we say", essentially.

Wesker, Birkin, and Alexia were all groomed (literal) under the Doctrine, meant to take over in Spencer's stead when he passed (and meant to fight for the position).

Birkin's hate for Alexia was an intentional machination of Spencer. Wesker was intended to experience it towards Birkin eventually, but ultimately did not.

There is only so much death you can voyeur - unwillingly, willingly, it doesn't change the outcome - until you are no longer empathetic to it.

He's a victim of an insurmountable magnitude of intentional happenings whose scale approaches the Truman trope.

His natural, base inclination is not violence.

Birkin had a much higher kill count than he did in the beginning of his arduous and terrible journey, one that they had both started with the desire for a positive change even after they grew up watching their peers picked off like carrion by Marcus.

Wesker's comment to Birkin after the murder of Marcus is that he does not feel anything - good or bad - and that Marcus was "just another monster".

In RE4, he is more than willing to let people solve his own problems without directly, violently interfering to reach his goals. Only when they require violence does he portray it - his first suggestions aren't needlessly cruel ("ring the church bell", "take advantage of the distraction [Leon] is causing", "use [Leon] to clean up Saddler").

When Wesker initially became suspicious of the Arklays, and he looked upon what he perceived was Spencer's goal, he found the idea of it completely revolting even at its' smallest scale. But he could not flee.

The Arklays were meant to produce a viable strain that Spencer could then himself perfect after shedding the Arklays as a testing ground; it was intentionally set up for the event of Raccoon City to occur, but it was not intended for it to occur at the time that it did.

Spencer admits that he - and Project W as a whole - were raised intentionally to produce tools who would become eugenicists in a similar fashion.

Eventually that bitter lie becomes so numb to Wesker's tongue that it begins to taste sweet. "A lie repeated twice is truth" is a known and very evil propaganda tactic employed by cults and fascists - it is called the 'illusion of truth' in psychology, the curse of familiarity.

He was not born evil, and he's a broken dichotomy of a person who is fundamentally incompatible with life.

[crushedsweets]

Can you tell us more about your oc? Bonnibel, I like a lot her design but I don't think I saw a lot about her...?

yes i can!!! yes i can!!!! tysm!

its confusing cuz Bonnie started as a basic self insert OC, BUT then i started putting her in a lot of different AUs and separating her from myself. considered making her blonde so she doesnt look like me LMAOOOO...

now theres 100 different versions of Bonnie with different groups/personal projects, BUT they're all relatively similar. I'll expand in this post! super long post btw i dont stop talking.

i'll separate this post by her general story, the differences between AUs, then art! if something is (bolded/like/this), that's because the information varies between AUs!

SO IF I HAD TO EXPLAIN HER GENERAL STORY...

HERE is a google doc to a longer, more detailed version of her backstory.

TLDR; she would visit her grandparents' orchard every summer as a child and get violently haunted by slendersick ghosts. because the ghosts deteroiated her mind, she would try to kill a ghost when she was 12, only to realize it was a real woman. She dragged the body deep into the forest (which slenderman ending up eating) and did not return to the orchard until she was (18/19/20). the story that follows varies from AU to AU

SO THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN AUS...

the 'main' AU i used Bonnie in is a personal AU between my irl friends called Washed Up. it takes place in a fictional beach town we made called Almyros Coast, set in SoCal. . . AND THAT AU IS SPLIT INTO TWO AUS LOL. theres a more fun one that we use to let our OCs interact with the canon creeps and worldbuild with. theres a second version where ghosts still follow bonnie, which are victims of a serial killer that has been stalking bonnie's best friend, camila. antics ensue and the story is unfinished!

i have the 'Creeped' bonnie, which doesnt really have a huge story. i just insert her into my Creeped AU, where she lives on the farm that the proxies work on. this is VERY recent cuz of some anons asking abt it, so i dont really have a story for it. i dont intend to give bonnie a notable place in my Canon Creeped Au, but in a world where Bonnie is an important character, she'd be used to figure out paranormal issues in the forest

THEN THERES THE SLENDERMANSION AU!!!! THIS BONNIE IS SO FUN TO ME!! she's honestly a totally different version . HERE is a link to that AU

theres a few AUs that i have on a much smaller, intimate level with individual friends that i dont feel like expanding here cuz im laaaazyyy

OK SO ART

Creeped AU

Washed Up

Slender Mansion

General

[korok-system]

Influenced .

Warnings: Alcoholic influence. Discussions of death, guilt, and heavy mourning. Plot related death. Standard SAW stuff.

Fandom: SAW.

Character/s: Mark Hoffman, Angelina Acomb.

Content: 3rd person perspective, SAW plot.

Synopsis: A poetic approach to Mark's dark days following the death of his aister, Angelina.

He remembered receiving the call on a random Tuesday.

As he draped his charcoal jacket over his shoulders and grabbed his badge, he distinctly remembered undergoing the same process he always did when responding to a homicide. Willing the world to be in his favour, allowing his soul to accrue a debt unpayable as the screech of his tires kept him from spiraling down the rabbit-hole of “what if?” scenarios.

It was something he never failed to do. A routine that would gnawe at his mind like an impulse that couldn't be silenced until he had visual confirmation that he wasn’t responding to the homicide of the one person he had.

Being confronted with brutality and violence so consistantly had dulled his empathy and compassion over time. It was something that his work friends would poke at him for, constantly questioning his humanity, concealing their genuine concern behind awkward laughter and forced smiles.

It had always made him uncomfortable how often his vision would haze these days.

Had he been a bad person in his past?

Sure, he had always felt some sense of relief when the victims being obscured by a body bag weren’t familiar… But did that make him a bad person, or human?

He had followed first responders into the small home, the sweet caramel aroma of previously lit candles greeted him, corrupted by the harsh scent of blood and the chaos of an active crime scene.

He’d navigated through the small home as though the layout was familiar, his feet carrying him along the beige coloured walls that once inhabited life and joy, every muscle suddenly taught and weak.

Because he knew.

Every step echoed the unpaid debt that the Universe was finally seeking compensation for.

And for a man who never devoted time to religion, a complete Atheist who had long accepted that death was an utter nothingness with no semblance of an afterlife… He found himself praying.

Her hand had been cold, her soul fleeing from the trauma long before he’d arrived.

She hadn’t returned the gesture when he squeezed her hand, hadn’t embraced him and spoke in the soft voice that now only lives within nightmares.

Why had those “what if?” scenarios become a reality? Was it because he was a bad person?

Had he been a bad person?

His vision was fuzzy again. Fuck.

The days following had been a dissociated blur, a haze of emotions he wasn’t used to feeling all clashing at once and making her death much harder to process.

Officers paid their condolences, all in passing, all without the genuine care they’d once shown during a period where he was already doubting himself.

Now, he was doubting everything.

Whiskey no longer tasted bitter.

His sorrow drowned out the joy of liqour.

Had he been a bad person?

The justice system had proved futile when handling the case with care and sympathy; denying him the closure he so desperately needed and treating his sister’s murder as a simple paper weight.

It was a meaningless scrap of paper, another statistic, another name to be spoken when it suited the world.

He’d lost hope in his own field that day.

He’d been selfish to assume he could make a difference… And all it took was a harsh slap of reality to enlighten him.

Rage and despair had consumed him, and he’d slowly become more detached, more sadistic, more sociopathic.

That once clear line between right and wrong blurred into obscurity.

He was a bad person.

Desperation had driven him to take matters into his own hands, and through a punctured hole in the steel wall, he paid witness to his warped sense of justice.

Justice had failed him… So he would become the arbiter of his own twisted retribution.

He is a bad person.

And he slowly came to enjoy it.

His vision wasn’t blurry anymore.

[halfagonyandhope]

How about a good ol’ sick fic 🤒 you choose who’s under the weather

He’s not sure he’s ever been this terrified before.

And that’s saying something, as just a standard month prior Obi-Wan Kenobi had been on the brink of death after falling victim to the venom-mites of Draboon. But that had been different. For one thing, he’d been mostly unconscious through the worst of the pain. And for another, he’d known Satine had been safe.

But now, on the other side of the planet, he’s also on the other side of fate, and he’s staring down at a nearly lifeless Satine, watching her shiver by the fading light of the fire.

Obi-Wan looks up toward the entrance to the cave, as though he has the ability to summon Qui-Gon back with sheer willpower alone. The elder Jedi had gone in search of more kindling to feed the dying flames, and he’d been away long enough that the temperature of their sanctuary had dropped precipitously.

Satine is shaking again, her fever still high.

Obi-Wan hesitates. He’d already wrapped his cloak around her, but he feels so damn helpless.

He remembers Qui-Gon’s words from earlier, in response to his question.

“Mandalorian medical factories pivoted away from producing vaccines and toward production of bandages and other supplies when the war began,” he’d told Obi-Wan. “When your people are dying, you don’t allocate resources to preventive health; you triage your available facilities to stop the bleeding where it’s currently happening.”

Obi-Wan had looked at him, aghast. “So Satine’s immune system isn’t as strong as yours or mine? That’s why we haven’t caught whatever she has?”

“Thank the healers at the Temple that your inoculations are up to date,” Qui-Gon had responded. “I’d wager that Satine’s people haven’t had access to such technology for many years.”

Obi-Wan returns his attention to here, now, in the cave. Oh, how he wishes he’d had the foresight to take her to the Hall of Healing before they’d departed Coruscant. But they’d had so little time, and he’d had so little knowledge of what they would face on the run.

He sighs.

Satine jerks suddenly, and a coughing fit seizes her entire body. It’s an eerie, horrible sound that echoes throughout the cave, and she struggles to catch her breath afterward.

Obi-Wan crawls to her, seeing that she’s awake.

“Water,” she mouths, her throat too weak to form the words.

Obi-Wan nods and reaches for the canteen near his feet. With his other arm, he pulls Satine up, holding her against his chest, her torso at a slight incline so that gravity can do the work she is too exhausted to. He puts the canteen to her lips, and she manages to swallow a few sips.

He sets the canteen aside, wrapping his other arm around her and noticing how she’s sweat through her tunic. But the sweat is turning cold as the temperature around them plummets, and Satine is still shaking.

And Obi-Wan is terrified all over again.

He pulls the cloak more tightly around her.

She just needs to make it through the night. Tomorrow, Qui-Gon will rendezvous with a contact who has retrovirals and antibiotics, the former to treat the initial infection and the latter to treat what Obi-Wan suspects is secondary pneumonia.

She just needs to make it through the night.

He realizes with a jolt that Satine is no longer shaking.

“Satine?” he whispers, alarmed.

“‘M alright,” she says, slurring her words, her cheek against his collarbone. “Finally warm.”

Obi-Wan examines her more closely. Sweat has stuck her hair to her face, and he brushes the strands away from her brow. The relief he feels upon seeing the tension fade from her jaw - it’s practically indescribable. 

Gradually, the tension also lessens in her shoulders and around her torso.

Obi-Wan feels Satine’s fingers fist in the fabric of his tunic, just over his heart. Her eyes are still closed, but she says, her voice cracking and strained, “I must have been quite close to death to receive that reaction.”

He laughs at how she’s echoed his words from when he’d woken by her side after surviving the venom-mite attack.

He tightens his grip on her. “You’re still quite close to death, by all appearances,” he notes.

“Well, then, I suppose you better keep being nice to me.” She breathes deeply but unevenly. “At least until I pull through. Then you can resume being insufferable.”

“Insufferable?” he says, disbelieving. She’d been the one who’d continued to be argumentative, even after the venom-mites.

Even after she’d kissed him.

Even after he’d kissed her back.

Obi-Wan grimaces. Maybe he’d also been argumentative. 

And maybe he’d liked it.

“Yes,” says Satine, her voice cracking. “Insufferable man. Incorrigible, even.”

In love, Obi-Wan’s brain supplies suddenly, and he tenses. He looks down again at Satine, wondering if she’s noticed, but she’s fallen back asleep, reclaimed by unconsciousness.

He closes his eyes in wonder.

The realization should frighten him more than anything else, but it doesn’t.

From the start, it’s like he had known she’d change everything he thought he knew about the galaxy. He’d pushed her away, repeatedly, scared of what she’d reveal about his feelings and how those feelings would reveal he wasn’t made to be a Jedi.

But he finds - to his surprise - that his feelings for her…somehow they don’t negate his ability to protect her. They don’t endanger her, or him.

The light he feels, the strength of his feelings - it all makes it easier to connect with the Force. It makes him a better Jedi.

It feels so antithetical to everything he’s ever been taught that he wonders if he’d ever really understood the Jedi at all.

Obi-Wan brushes a kiss to Satine’s temple.

And, suddenly, he’s afraid no longer.

[silverfox66]

🇳🇱💪🏻🇬🇧💪🏻🇺🇦

[batsplat]

Casey Stoner, Pushing the Limits

GP11:

GP12:

x

[skunkes]

I might be stupid but is Al, Smunker, and Talon togetherrrr. Like a polycule or are they having a secret 3rd thing? Sorry if the answer is obvious jdjdj

theyre together! au (?) for cheye's survival

(general info doodle i made a few months ago) (i say au but idk it could become permanent in my daydream zone, Talon is meant to have his own canon but I like him too much and am bad at writing plots)

This is still a fairly recent development so the current needed-SOME-foundation lore is:

talon and al were as together as talon would allow at the time (so not really) but he liked Al most even amidst his anxieties about men. He leaves for a long while with no contact once he realizes he's getting toooooo comfortable with al, comes back for another round of comfort and gets attached again to both the guy he knew AND the guy's boyfriend

I dont think Talon actually likes being referred to as boyfriend by either of them, nor would he refer to them as his boyfriends, but the attachment and "role" is still there and that's what they loosely consider him (i have to explore this further, theres still a lot i dont know abt him) while also knowing he could just decide to leave again if he so wishes

[spacedlexi]

people dont talk enough about how heartbreaking the marlon betrayal mustve been for clem too,,

this dude saves the life of her and her kid. takes them in has them patched up gives them their first hot meal in who knows how long. gives them a safe place to stay. possibly permanently. confides in her that hes trying to be a good leader but feels like and fears that hes failing. asks her to help him take care of the rest of the group. helps her get over her fear of dogs by asking her to trust him. and things go well. she feels safe. like this place could really finally be the home shes been looking for

but as soon as she finds out what happened to the twins. that marlon planned on giving up her and aj too. she immediately becomes a liability to him and he attempts to kill her for it. locks her in the basement to die by walker. then tries to turn the group against her so he can shoot her instead when the first method fails. and he nearly succeeds

then a majority of the group turn against clem the minute aj kills marlon. ignoring marlons mistakes but condemning aj for his. like clem wasnt betrayed by marlon in the exact same way he betrayed the twins. like she literally wasnt almost killed twice? and how long had he been considering giving her up? was it always some contingency he planned? did he truly want to keep them around and things only changed when he feared the raiders had returned? she'll never know

[katyspersonal]

Although I never trashed "Mohg did nothing wrong" / "Griffith reference Miquella" people (I just didn't understand the appeal of these interpretations and had my own idea), @ the characters I am now like:

[cuteniaarts]

What a shame… you always had such beautiful hair

[melishade]

I like what they're doing so far with her in the comics.

Re-Blog if you want to see Azula get her Redemption Arc!

Come on.  Look at that face!

[clownboy-yeehonk]

.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Stages of Decomposition

The decomposition process occurs in several stages following death:

Pallor mortis

Algor mortis

Rigor mortis

Cadaveric spasm

Lividity

Putrefaction

Decomposition

Skeletonization

PALLOR MORTIS

The first stage of death.

Occurs once blood stops circulating in the body.

The cessation of an oxygenated blood flow to the capillaries beneath the skin causes the deceased to pale in appearance.

In non-Caucasians, the pallor may appear to develop an unusual hue; the skin will lose any natural lustre and appears more waxen.

Occurs quite quickly, within about 10 minutes after death.

ALGOR MORTIS

The cooling of the body after death.

The cooling process will be influenced by many factors, including the deceased’s clothing, or whether they are covered with bed linen such as blankets or duvets.

The body will typically cool to the ambient room temperature, but this alters if there is heating in the room or if there is a constant draught cooling the body.

RIGOR MORTIS

Can occur between 2 and 6 hours after death.

Factors including temperature can greatly affect this.

Caused by the muscles partially contracting, and the lack of aerobic respiration means that the muscles cannot relax from the contraction, leaving them tense, subsequently resulting in the stiffening we associate with rigor mortis.

This stage typically begins in the head, starting with the eyes, mouth, jaw and neck, and progresses right through the body.

The process is concluded approximately 12 hours after death (although, again, certain variables may occur) and lasts between 24 and 72 hours depending on circumstances.

Contrary to popular belief, rigor mortis is not a permanent state and is in fact reversed, with the muscles relaxing in the same order in which they initially stiffened.

The reversing process also takes approximately 12 hours, when the body returns to its un-contracted state.

It is possible to ‘break’ rigor mortis by manipulating and flexing the limbs. This is usually done by undertakers, pathologists or crime scene investigators who are attempting to examine or move a body – or by a murderer trying to hide their victim in the closet or the boot of a car.

CADAVERIC SPASM

A phenomenon that can be misinterpreted as rigor mortis.

The instantaneous stiffening of the body (most commonly the hands) following a traumatic death.

Unlike rigor mortis, the stiffening of the affected limb is permanent and is not reversed, causing the deceased to maintain the rigidity until such time as putrefaction causes breakdown of the particular muscle group.

Examples:

The deceased following an air crash were later discovered still clutching their seatbelts or arm rests in a final, desperate act of survival.

In a drowning case, the victim was discovered with grass from the riverbank still grasped in their hand.

Perhaps the most famous case of cadaveric spasm involves the rock band Nirvana’s lead singer, Kurt Cobain. Cobain reportedly committed suicide in April 1994. His body was discovered a few days after his death with a shotgun wound to the head, and tests revealed he had large traces of heroin in his system. He was reportedly discovered still clutching the gun in his left hand, due to cadaveric spasm. However, a great deal of controversy surrounds the veracity of this latter assumption, and indeed the cause of his death, with many people insisting and attempting to prove that he died as the result of foul play rather than suicide.

LIVIDITY

Also known as livor mortis, hypostasis, or suggillation.

Once blood can no longer circulate, it will gravitate towards the lowest point of the body.

Example: A supine body will display pinkish/purple patches of discoloration where the blood has settled in the back and along the thighs.

Occurs about 30 minutes after death, but will not necessarily be noticeable until at least 2 hours afterwards as the pooling process intensifies and becomes visible, finally peaking up to between 8 and 12 hours later.

Once it is complete, the lividity process cannot be reversed.

Therefore a body discovered lying on its side, but with staining evident in the back and shoulders, must have been moved at some point from what would have been a supine position at the time of death.

It is worth noting that if the body has had contact with the floor, a wall or other solid surface, lividity would not occur at the points of contact as the pressure would not allow the blood to seep through the capillaries and pool. The specific area of pressure will be the same colour as the rest of the body and a pattern of contact may well be evident.

PUTREFACTION

Derives from the Latin putrefacere, meaning ‘to make rotten’.

The body becomes rotten through the process known as autolysis, which is the liquefaction of bodily tissue and organs and the breakdown of proteins within the body due to the increased presence of bacteria.

The first visible sign is the discoloration of the skin in the area of the abdomen.

Bacteria released from the intestine cause the body to become bloated with a mixture of gases; over time these will leak out, and the smell will intensify to unbearable proportions.

Typically, this will attract flies that will lay eggs, which develop into maggots.

Bloating is most evident in the stomach area, genitals and face, which can become unrecognizable as the tongue and eyes are forced to protrude due to the pressure of the build-up of gases in the body.

At this stage, the body will also begin to lose hair.

The organs typically decompose in a particular order: starting with the stomach, followed by the intestines, heart, liver, brain, lungs, kidney, bladder and uterus/prostate.

Once all the gases have escaped the skin begins to turn black: this stage is called ‘black putrefaction’.

As with all the other stages of death so far, the rate of putrefaction depends on temperature and location. A body exposed to the air above ground will decompose more quickly than a body left in water or buried below ground.

During putrefaction, blistering of the skin and fermentation can also occur:

Fermentation - a type of mould that will grow on the surface of the body. This mould appears white, and is slimy or furry in texture. It also releases a very strong, unpleasant, cheesy smell.

As the putrefaction process comes to an end, fly and maggot activity will become less, which leads to the next stage.

DECOMPOSITION

The body is an organic substance comprising organisms that can be broken down by chemical decomposition.

If the body is outside, any remains that have not been scavenged or consumed by maggots will liquefy and seep into the surrounding soil.

Thus when the body decomposes it is effectively recycled and returned to nature.

SKELETONIZATION

The final stage of death is known as ‘dry decay’, when the cadaver has all but dried out: the soft tissue has all gone and only the skeleton remains.

If the cadaver is outside, not only is it exposed to the elements but it also becomes food for scavengers such as rats, crows or foxes.

As the remains are scavenged, the body parts become dispersed so it is not unusual to find skeletal remains some distance from where the body lay at the point of death.

The way in which skeletal remains are scattered in such cases is of interest to archaeologists, and is referred to as taphonomy.

Where a body has lain undiscovered at home for a period of time it has also been known for family pets, typically dogs, to feed on the body. The natural instinct of a pet is to attempt to arouse the deceased by licking them, but once it gets hungry, its survival instinct will take over and it will consider the body as little more than carrion: it will act with the same natural instinct as a scavenger in the wild, which will feed on any corpse, be it animal or human, if it is starving.

Obviously the number of pets, the body mass of the deceased and the time lapse before the body is discovered will influence to what extent it has been devoured.

For further research on the stages of decomposition and the factors that affect it, look up body farms. These are medical facilities where bodies are donated for research purposes so scientists can specifically observe the decomposition process. However, be aware that some of the images are quite graphic.

Source ⚜ More: References ⚜ Autopsy ⚜ Pain & Violence ⚜ Injuries Bereavement ⚜ Death & Sacrifice ⚜ Cheating Death ⚜ Death Conceptions