Black and grey realism tattoo of a skull wrapped in octopus tentacles across the upper arm, shown in a full view and a close-up.

Skull and octopus tentacles on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A human skull with octopus tentacles wrapping around its lower jaw and down the arm, with the suckers drawn in fine detail. The tattoo uses smooth grey shading, strong highlights and dark recesses to give the skull and tentacles volume. The left panel shows the full piece on an upper arm against a black top, and the right panel is a close-up of the skull.

Realism Upper arm Skull Octopus Tentacle Sucker

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The net came up heavy on the third haul off Dunrath, and Tam Greig knew by its weight that it was not fish. The winch whined, the cod end swung over the gunwale, and the skipper, Ruddock, swore into his collar and told them all to keep their hands out of the mesh. Something pale hung in the twine, turning slowly as the spray hit it. Tam leaned in with the gaff.

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It was a skull, old and yellow-grey, its brow cracked like a dropped plate. Around its jaw coiled arms as thick as hawsers, and every arm was dotted with suckers, each one ringed and puckered as if someone had inked them with a fine nib. One arm had already found the rail. Tam watched it tighten on the wood, slow as a clock hand, and felt the cold climb up through his boots.

Nobody spoke. The engine idled. Ruddock finally crouched beside the thing and, instead of cutting, began unpicking the twine one loop at a time, murmuring to it the way a man soothes a dog that has been beaten. "Your sea's gone to Shetland," he told it. "Nobody's sending you home." The arms loosened, one after another, and slid back over the side with a sound like a wet sleeve being drawn off.

They came in with an empty hold that week and nobody argued about it. Tam kept the gaff, though. Some mornings he found a fresh ring of rust on its handle, neat as a seal pressed into wax, and he stopped asking himself who was keeping the account.