But wait! Consider! A Twilight tattoo has many ramifications. I mean, besides the fact that everyone is going to look at it for the rest of your life and be like, "huh, so that's what you spent a couple hundred bucks on, huh?" Your Twilight tattoo should express the essence of who you are, and what you want out of life and/or sparkly vampires with outmoded attitudes toward gender.
Fortunately for you, Geekologie has provided a handy gallery of Twilight tattoos! (It has also provided many comments you should not read, and proof of the fact that when something geeky is associated with girls everyone in the world can feel free to make fun of it and talk about how terrible it is, whereas when something geeky is associated primarily with guys it is a renowned cultural institution and/or Star Wars.) Here, we examine the leading contenders, to see which one captures the precise nature of your Twilight love.
This is a tattoo that says, "ask me about my extensive collection of free-verse poems featuring the word 'darkness.'"
This is a tattoo that says, "I will be wearing a turtleneck for every single day of my summer internship."
This is a tattoo that says, "since I assume you will be watching me while I sleep, I've provided you with extensive reading material."
This is a tattoo that says, "why do people keep buying me copies of Codependent No More?"
And finally, this is a Twilight tattoo that says, "basically, I have given up."So, what will your Twilight tattoo say about you? Only you can decide! Well, you and everyone else who sees the words "R-PATT 4EVER" tattooed on your neck, I guess.
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This is the greatest sentence I have read today, and should have been handed out in goodie bags at comic con: "...proof of the fact that when something geeky is associated with girls everyone in the world can feel free to make fun of it and talk about how terrible it is, whereas when something geeky is associated primarily with guys it is a renowned cultural institution and/or Star Wars."
ReplyDeleteAnd while I am loathe to admit it I have read all 4 books - though I did mostly hate each one, I am pretty sure Stephenie Meyer has succeeded in creating a form of literary crack cocaine.
I mean, at least it's not a Twilight tatoo that says, "this is a spaceship drawn on my penis." Which is more than I can say about other permanent body art odes to sci-fi.
ReplyDeleteThe advantage of being well over thirty is that I need not adhere to such requirements. Because I have a brain.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, I'm thinking along the lines of a t-shirt reading "I don't have to. I Have a Brain."
That fourth one - or second from the bottom - really freaks me out. What are those reddish semi-circular things? Did she have gouge wounds tattood onto herself?
ReplyDeleteLooking at the Geekologie pics, some of the stuff on the tattoos that's not specifically Twilight-related is kind of cool, like the brambles and stars and flowers - and some of the fonts are pretty. Bet your ass though if you got a tattoo of a big portrait of Robert Patterson, you will be regretting that down the road.
Totally agreed that Star Wars/Trek geekery is no less stupid than Twilight/Titanic geekery. And you know what else? Girl geeks made Elvis and the Beatles happen, but do we ever get credit for that? Hell no!
As far as Geekologie and all its affiliates, any blog with comment threads full of firsties and "gay," you know you're in for a stimulating discussing right there. The commentariat at those gossipy hate blogs share about the same average intelligence level as the commenters on YouTube.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I've always been - and continue to be - told that celeb and entertainment gossip was a stereotypically female enterprise, but it seems at least half the bloggers and commenters on those blogs are dudes. hmm...
The thing I like about the first one is that it also says "I seem to be unclear on the fact that I, as a Normal Human Being (albeit a Twilight tatto-getting one) do, in fact dream!"
ReplyDeleteYou'd think the person wouldn't miss that, as it appears that they, if nothing else, probably dream about Twilight.
So far I've avoided reading the books myself. I'm tempted, though. For the Snark Factor.
-Dorian
I snorted tea through my nose when I read your caption to the first tattoo photo. I did read Twilight, but found myself so repulsed by the retrofuck gender and race stuff, as well as S.Meyer's refusal to pick up a thesaurus, for fuck's sake!, that I couldn't continue the series. However, it likely would've appealed to me when I was a gothy teenager, due to my notebooks upon notebooks of free verse poetry featuring darkness. Also, anguished love. While it's hilarious to look back upon my bad poems (why did I capitalize absolutely nothing, then suddenly decide to go all Emily Dickens? I cannot recall!), I remain profoundly grateful that I never got a quote from, like, Queen of the Damned tattooed on my back. *shudder*
ReplyDeleteHmph. Kids these days with their sparkly-vampire-related tattoos. Stick with the classics, I say.
ReplyDeleteI...
ReplyDelete...kind of love the gouge wounds, actually.
I am the wrong kind of dork for Twilight tattoos, but I would totally go for the gouge wound thing in some other context. They're awesome
That said, you are dead on about the contempt for girly geekery. I don't think those books actually suck all that much more than Star Wars. I am so tired of monomyths, already.
Yeah, Katie, I'm pretty sure I would have read it as a teen, too. Instead of, or in addition to, all those Anne Rice novels. I really liked the Taltos ones, about which I remember barely anything, except that they're the reason I wanted a necklace with a really big amethyst in it for graduation (amethyst is my birthstone), and something about having a baby in a swamp and eating nothing but white foods. I wonder what the hell those books were about!
ReplyDeletesnobographer--
ReplyDeleteStar Trek fandom has actually historically been female-dominated. In the popular imagination it's associated with middle-aged virgin guys who live in their mothers' basements, but that's essentially a media-created stereotype--the first conventions were organized and attended primarily by women (and it seems like nowadays there are at least equal if not higher numbers of girls at cons), the first Star Trek fanvid was by a woman, a lot of the early bbs's and fanzines were mostly girls, &c.
I think the erasure of female Trekkers in the popular media has something really interesting to say about sexism, but I'm not entirely sure WHAT...
Yah, I may be older, but that just means I read Pern instead of Twilight. Sparkly dragons!
ReplyDeleteWhat's creepy about the "There are no rules that can bind you when you find your other half" one is that (IIRC*) it's a quote about how the werewolves in the book will sometimes "imprint" on a person and become their protector/true love/soul mate. (No, the imprinted person does not have a say in this! It just happens.) There is one werewolf-lady couple where the lady's face is disfigured because the werewolf guy who had imprinted on her at one point lost control of himself and MAULED HER. And she was all like understanding about it and shit, he couldn't help himself! And he was soooo sorry and it will never ever happen again sweetie!
ReplyDeleteYeah so someone got a tattoo about how romantic domestic violence is, complete with wounds. Creep central.
As a friend said on Twitter, "I think it's awesome that so many young people are getting Twilight tattoos. Now young people will know who they should absolutely not date."
(* Yes, I read them, and they made me scream and tear my hear out and throw them across the room, and also I loved them like cotton candy and want to read them again. Please send help.)
Gots to agree with octpod -- as a tattoo afficianado*, that is by far the best one featured here. And until you actually read the text, and realize it's a) creepy stalkerish and b) related to Twilight, it looks like a pretty bad-ass tattoo.
ReplyDeleteThe others just make me wonder if I really belong to the same species as these people. (Says the person who is in the process of deciding on a Dark Tower themed tattoo.....)
*well, not really, I just like them a whole lot.
Oooh, CaitieCat, I LOOOOVED Pern when I was a young lass. So. So. Very. Much. I had an imaginary dragon named...something. Goldie or something. I swear I could see her sometimes.
ReplyDeleteAnd Julian, I listened to the Dark Tower audiobooks several times while spending long hours animating in college.
@Eleniel: What you said. The whole "Twilight" series is so weirdly built around romanticizing intimate violence and other forms of abuse that the tattooed bodily injury + quote from "Chicken Soup for the Stalkers' Soul" freaks me out. It makes me think that young women are totally getting into this fantasy of the intense, strong guy who wants to control you because he's PROTECTING YOU and/or hurts you because he can't CONTAIN HIS PASSION, and that is just buckets and buckets of No Good.
ReplyDelete@Chelsea, CaitieCat: Oh, God. Pern. PERRRRRRRRN. I designed a Pern boardgame for my independent study in English class in sixth grade. IT WAS A MASTERPIECE OF DRAGON-BASED GAMING EXPERIENCE. I knew there was a reason I liked you two!
LOL, I wonder how many of us designed Pern games? I did one with my friend Peter back in...Grade 7? Would have been...1977? It was very complex. We had Threadfall and gawky Holders and going between time and everything. :D
ReplyDeleteI think it makes me a little softer on the Twilight fans, knowing that I was as gushy about Pern, back when, and how squeeful I was that I once exchanged e-mails with Anne McCaffrey herself. She called me "Cavebaby", misreading my e-mail addy. This would have been in...let's see, 1996? 97, maybe?
OMG Sady I want this boardgame! It's time, Sady. Time for you to pitch this idea to Hasbro.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, Geekologie posted this Star Wars tattoo girl: http://www.geekologie.com/2009/07/death_star_of_hearts_star_wars.php
ReplyDeleteMany Geekologie fans, such as myself, disagree that it is a fail.
Pern, sadly, has plenty of issues of its own (actually, a lot of the *same* ones). I don't want to go back and read them because they'll probably be a lot more fucked up than I remembered...
ReplyDeleteomg, Pern. I loved Pern until I realized the sex to dragonriding ratio was something like 100:1.
ReplyDeleteIn other women's fantasy news, I recently found out that Tanith Lee's Black Unicorn, one of my favorite books since like middle school, has TWO SEQUELS, which I promptly ordered and am now reading. Recommended!
Blue Mako, that was kinda the point - that I don't criticize girls today for Twilight, because I remember too well my own "OOH SPARKLY DRAGONS" approach to the equally-problematic Pern. :)
ReplyDeleteAlso, dragons >>>>>>>>>>> vampires.
ReplyDelete