Tattoos as Rite Of Passage

Mur Lafferty on writing Bookburners Ep 8: “Under My Skin”

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My husband and I decided to cut the cable cord years ago, realizing we were using streaming services more and more. We missed it only a little bit, but I was out of the pop culture discussion in a lot of spheres. When I was traveling with my daughter, we discovered the hotel had a channel we didn’t have access too, and we got drawn in by a reality tattoo show. We both watched several episodes, entranced. I have a love-hate relationship with reality TV, since I find the editing to be misleading and I hate mind games, but the competitions are fascinating.

So when trying to dream up a good “monster of the week” episode, I wondered about sentient tattoo ink.

Tattoos have such significance in every culture, even crappy tattoos signify a rite of passage of some kind, even if it was just “got really trashed with some friends and made a bad decision.” The act of getting the tattoo itself is a rite of passage, with pain, blood, and healing. You have to decide how you feel about the final design. I have a friend who stated that she had moles and scars on her body that she didn’t choose to have, but she’s stuck with. Why not put something on there that she loved, that she chose? It was the best explanation I had heard, and started getting inked myself. While I try not to get inked too often, the pull is always there. It’s almost intoxicating.

I don’t know if I would ever be on one of those shows. The possibilities for a bad tattoo, or one I didn’t want, is too big. But I’m fascinated by the people who subject themselves and surrender even their humanity to be called a “canvas” for these stressed out artists who are more focused on the prize rather than doing a good job for their customer. I’ve seen people walk out with amazing tattoos, and some who hate what they get. Still, I can’t stop watching these souls get tattooed on air.

Amusing anecdote about this episode: three of the four of us writing at this point in the season had part of the plot hinge on someone going out for a cigarette, allowing our heroes to get into an area they weren’t previously allowed in. When our copyeditor pointed this out to us, we all removed them. Now there are no people smoking and being distracted. This is what a good copyeditor will get you.

I want to give a shout-out to Margaret Dunlap for her help in this episode, by the way. Her experience in television helped me with the details, and it was very useful to get her notes.

Mur Lafferty is the author of The Shambling Guides series from Orbit, including The Shambling Guide to New York City and Ghost Train to New Orleans. She has been a podcaster for over 10 years, running award-winning shows such as I Should Be Writing and novellas published via podcast. She has written for RPGs, video games, and short animation. She lives in Durham, NC where she attends Durham Bulls baseball games and regularly pets two dogs. Her family regrets her Dragon Age addiction and wishes for her to get help. She tweets as @mightymur.

Originally published at blog.serialbox.com on October 30, 2015.

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