To Tattoo or Not to Tattoo

Recently, I have been seriously considering getting a tattoo.

Not a big tattoo, mind you. And not something crazy or tacky or anything. I’m talking something fairly small, easy to cover up if I want to, and, most importantly, that means something to me. I don’t want to regret getting it.

Now, I don’t know how much tattoos cost or anything, but I have some idea of what I might want to get, and where I might want to get one. Like I said, if I got a tattoo, I’d want it to be something that would always mean something to me, to represent something important in my life. And I’ve already kind of narrowed it down to several categories of subjects I might want.

The first category would be traditional Chinese characters. My family heritage is a huge part of who I am, and it would be very cool to have a phrase that means something to me tattooed somewhere. Phrases/words I have considered would be “beautiful” coupled with “dangerous,” “Daughter of the Dragon” a variation of what some Chinese call themselves, the word “dragon,” or the word “phoenix,” which is my favorite mythological animal. The trouble I have with this idea is mostly just the fact that I don’t actually speak Chinese, and trusting the Internet will most likely lead to me getting “naked soup bowl” tattooed on my leg or something, which would not be fun.

The second category would something Harry Potter related. Quick trivia time: I FUCKING LOVE HARRY POTTER. (Everyone who thinks that makes me a devil-worshiping, spell-casting heathen, please take this message to heart: I WISH! Feel free to start spamming my inbox now.) I think it is arguably the best book series ever written; if not that, it is most certainly a phenomenal series with fantastic characters, an amazing story arc, and an entire world that truly feels like it exists whether or not you’re in it. I am a HUGE Harry Potter fangirl. I would love to have a Harry Potter tattoo, but I wouldn’t want it to be obnoxiously huge or colorful.

The third would be a Star Wars tattoo. (I’ll be fangirling here for a moment, too, just to warn you.) I love Star Wars. I know it’s now basically a cow that developers are milking every last drop of milk in the form of money from, and you know what? I don’t even care. I mean, I spent actual money to play Star Wars: The Old Republic when it first came out, and had to quit because it took up too much of my time and my grades were falling. When I heard it was now free to play, I probably would’ve started playing it again if I had access to a computer it would run on. I know it wasn’t a great game. I know the PvP was unbalanced. I didn’t care. When I heard Disney bought LucasArts and were going to make an Episode 7, my first reaction was not “Oh, no, they’re going to fuck it up even worse than Jar-Jar Binks did.” It was not “Please don’t try to convince us that Padme and Anakin had chemistry.”  It was “I need to audition. I’ll be a Jedi! Or a Sith! Or a bounty hunter! Or an extra! You know what? I’m willing to be the first casualty! JUST LET ME IN!!!” So, yes, getting a Star Wars tattoo would be right up my alley.

The last category is the largest in terms of the amount of things in the categories, but also probably the least likely in terms of me actually getting one: Disney. I love Disney movies, especially the animated ones. The problems I can see with it? Well, a lot of Disney tattoos are large and/or complex and/or brightly colored. I’m not fantastically excited about that. I can see getting a very small one: maybe an “Eat me” cake from Alice In Wonderland, the paopa fruit from “Kingdom Hearts”, or the quote “Keep Moving Forward” from Meet the Robinson’s. But overall, I can’t see immortalizing a lot of Disney things on my body, no matter how much I love them.

So what’s holding me back from getting a tattoo? I am a huge freaking coward. I am so scared it’s going to hurt! And people don’t even lie to me when I ask! They all seem to go “Yeah it hurt a lot, don’t get one if you have a low pain tolerance.” Well, what’s a low pain tolerance? I mean, I’m not weak and I’ve done some stuff in pain that a lot of people wouldn’t be able to (ie ran half a mile on a sprained ankle, and finished a basketball game with two broken fingers.) But I also hate having my hair pulled, so much so that I literally tear up every time I get my hair cut and washed at a salon and they yank the knots out of my hair. So can I stand the pain? If I get a small tattoo, that’ll hurt less, right? Maybe some of you will know. (Feel free to leave a comment, either terrifying me or telling me to go for it.) I’ll probably grow some balls and get a tattoo eventually, but I’ll definitely be terrified right up until I’m finished.

Maybe as a birthday present to myself this year. That gives me a few months to get braver.

Love,

The Femme Fatale Farmgirl