(Untitled)

[sandpaperbreath]

Since we're askin' questions...

What're tattoos used fer on your home world?

Found a book in the library t'day. Got a guy--[ugly chuckle.]--with a topknot and what looks like'a lurker shark on his back. Y'don't see nothin' stupid like that back home.

Comments

[noir_epoch]

Hmm...Tattoos... (Greed studies the back of his left hand, looking at the Oroboros symbol emblazoned in red.)

Mostly I think they're just body art, though I suppose some organizations make special use of them. But sometimes...

(Greed grins, and it's clearly audible)

...They mark the Special.

[sandpaperbreath]

'Mark the Special', huh?

Who's special enough fer a tattoo in your world?

[noir_epoch]

Oh, a rare few. Like me.

Speaking of, if you see anyone with a red tatoo somewhere on their body of a serpent biting it's own tail while circling a pentagram, let me know will you? And it'd be a good idea to keep your distance from them.

[sandpaperbreath]

Arright.

Y'gonna tell me why?

And maybe what a 'pentagarm' is?

[nantokanare]

Tattoos are for criminals.

[sandpaperbreath]

Really? Why?

[nantokanare]

They do it for loyalty in the yakuza, so normal people don't want them. Only criminals do.

[sandpaperbreath]

They use needles where yer from?

[wannaclap_cant]

Uh...my mother has a sort of tattoo, a gold inlay at the small of her back, and I'd have one up my right arm by now if I had a right arm.

[Clears his throat.]

It's a rite of passage in the Temple; everyone intending to stay in the service of the Old Ones gets an inlay burned in when they reach adulthood. Mine was...still in planning, I guess. Special case and all. Heh. It's probably going on my leg whenever I get back.

I've heard that the black-haired mountain elves are spell-branded--that is, uh, tattooed by magic when they reach a certain age. But they don't broadcast much about that sort of thing so I might be wrong.

[sandpaperbreath]

Burned, huh? So 's more of a designed scar.

[wannaclap_cant]

No, no scarring or anything--the burning is to curl away the skin so that molten gold can be sort of...painted, I guess? Onto the second skin underneath, above the muscle. Then new skin grows in and a couple healing spells keep it from scarring, because then the gold wouldn't be visible which would really make the whole fiasco pretty foolish.

When it's all healed up there's a thin layer of bright gold in between the upper skin and the inner skin, formed into some kind of specialized design.

[thenotmagician]

People tended to get tattoo's cause they just wanted to back where I was from. Or they were part of a religion. It isn't really common unless you were part of a gang.

I used t'be part of a gang. Got a big black snake on my face still because I never bothered having it removed.

[sandpaperbreath]

What kinda religious tattoos?

...an' hell, why a snake?

[thenotmagician]

No idea. Some of the more 'barbaric' or ones that have to do with magic tend to have bizarre ones. Don't see them very often.

It was just the symbol of the gang. Thought it was cool when I was a kid. Got us a lot of attention; made people stay away. Now it's just sorta annoying.

[notaninnocent]

Well, tattoos aren't used for anything back home - at least, not that I'm aware of. Sailors often get them, I believe, and sometimes the... rougher sort. Criminals and the like.

[sandpaperbreath]

That's right, y'used t'live in a port town, didn'tcha?

I hope y'didn't think I was some criminal when we met, Jo.

[Though...he's been one XD.]

[notaninnocent]

Oh no, not at all! You were far too nice to be a criminal.

[After, y'know, she'd stopped being terrified of him.]