Lol so this is a bit of a reach, but hear me out:
I love tattoos. I have five. Two custom (my clover and moon dreaming of sheep) and three flash pieces (Capricorn mergoat, girl dancing with fairies and woman being dragged up to heaven by angels). All of them tell a sort of story, reflect who I am. And yes, I have many ideas for more.
I got to thinking… in a way, aren’t tattoos examples of transmedia? Just like how toys are you telling your own stories with existing characters, tattoos tell stories. Coverups you get to hide scars and past mistakes. Cremation tattoos allow you to literally carry the piece of a loved one wherever you go. Most times you get a tattoo that means something to you. As such, every tattoo tells a story, even if it’s just “I was bored.”
What stories do your tattoos, existing and future, tell?
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This is such an interesting way to look at tattoos Banafsheh Esmailzadeh. Thanks for sharing! I have never thought about them as transmedia before, but I love creating characters that feel toy-ready or Halloween costume-worthy.
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No worries Dwayne Williams 2, and thank you as well. I was thinking we could also be stories or at least canvases and tattoos themselves tell stories. I wonder if any of my characters are worthy of merch or tattoos hehe that would be awesome~
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You’re welcome Banafsheh Esmailzadeh! I love that perspective. It is amazing to see audiences interact so deeply with the characters and stories they love. The idea that we’re canvases and living stories ourselves is poetic!
That is honestly the dream for me one day, to see kids and adults dressed up as one of my creations, whether for Halloween, conventions, or just because they connect with the character. That kind of impact would mean everything. :)
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hello.....should we become friends?
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This is a brilliant take—tattoos as the most personal form of transmedia. A coverup as a retcon, cremation ink as a character spinoff that lives on another "platform." I love it. My own tattoos tell stories of places and people I've carried with me. For you, is there a tattoo that acts as a "seed" for a larger narrative—something that could expand into a character or a whole world?
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Another great question Sam Rivera, of the tattoos I currently have, my clover probably has the most amount of specific meaning and actually is a symbol of my series Petal. It’s the name of one of the most important female characters (Clover), also gotten at a tattoo shop sharing the name of the chakra the novel she appears in represents (third eye), and of course it has 4 leaves (Leaf). My second most meaningful tattoo is my Capricorn mergoat, because not only am I a Capricorn but so are all of my protagonists.
As for future tattoos… my favourite tattoo artist has two flash pieces I’m strongly considering getting, one is a nun and the other a maid. I was actually even thinking of writing a story about such a woman, maybe as a nun she longs for the days she was a young maid, maybe it’s a commentary on how little life actually changes. I’m not sure, but I saw a bit of myself in both of them.