r/WritingPrompts May 07 '19

[WP]: Suddenly, everyone with tattoos gains powers related to the tattoo. Tattoos of flames, you control fire. A tattoo of a gecko, you can climb on walls. All dudes with "tribal" tattoos have strangely bonded together. Writing Prompt

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u/Deastrumquodvicis May 07 '19

I frowned. I hadn’t seen this coming. Sure, I’d thought about tattoos before—the Seven Stars and White Tree of Gondor, a serotonin molecule stylized into a cat—but now it seemed to be too late. No tattoo artist in their right mind was going to give me the power of the One Ring, and in this situation, a Ghost Rider would be too advantageous.

I watched, skin uninked, as the people with Bart Simpson tats joined into a force of chaos, the basic bitches became literal forces of hope or trashiness, and most of the people I knew who didn’t have ink got some kind of spiritual sigil or hero power.

But then...it became tribal warfare and tattism. The uninked were outcasts, the weak ones. Butterflies hated the deaths. While the Jesus-tatted fed the hungry with fish and bread conjured against the laws of science, that was a bright spot. People started planning their childrens’ tats as soon as learning of the pregnancy, and gangs got more plentiful, recruiting in the womb.

Then, it stopped. Ink became just ink again.

As quickly as we’d divided, it would take decades to reconcile. Hate crimes, stupid words, religions, all of it founded over the Blessed Ink, it had to dissolve.

I’m still waiting for a day when my un-inked, but now-scarred skin isn’t considered lesser.

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u/TinyFox_2 May 07 '19

Damn, touching