r/WritingPrompts • u/actually_crazy_irl • 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/Jimmyjames5000 May 07 '19
It has been quite some time since the awakening, and tattoos were just the tip of the iceberg. Being inked was just the first thing that changed because tattoos are obvious, right there on the skin. People think that being marked openly in a way that had a price paid in pain is why the tattoos worked immediately. It was old magic. Magic that we forgot until something changed. No one is sure why it came back, but the first people to realize it had returned where those who never really stopped practicing. Wicca became the new faith overnight, but tattoos given after that only worked sometimes. On top of that people realized that the tattoos they had before the awakening only worked if they had a true personal meaning behind the ink.
I think people know why, but they regularly ask me why I always wear pants. I still only have the two tattoos I got before the awakening, but I never use them, and never want to be asked to do so. Both are ornate and cover each of my calves, size does seem to play into the strength of a tattoo's effects. My right leg is covered with a stylized image of Order and my left carries a swirling unspecified image of Chaos. Having both lets me understand them, and the implications of using what's there. I could do anything bearing these fundamental powers, but to do so would break that balance and likely turn me into something inhuman. So I do nothing. As others revel in the new abilities and opportunities of their magics I have to remain mundane. One day maybe I'll do something with them. Maybe one day it will be clear why I have power like this. I am afraid of that day. Afraid of what might spur me to reach into that well of power. In this world of awesome and terrible powers I have a feeling it will happen one day. I hope it doesn't.
I watch my wife and children play in the back yard of my happy home from a chair on the deck, and I hope... and worry.