If you have no intention of getting a tattoo, what tattoo *would* you get?

In My Humble Opinion
1

So I have never had the remotest interest in getting a tattoo and I can’t see that ever changing. But if I did go crazy one day and decide to get one (and deal with the repercussions, namely explaining it to my kids). I would go for the section of the The Dialogue of Pessimism in Akkadian :
“Go into the ruin heaps and walk around. Look at the skulls of the lowly and the great. Which belongs to one who did evil and which belongs to one who did good?”.

I dunno if the cuneiform would make the process more or less painful than other scripts

What would other dopers (who will never get a tattoo) choose ?

2

I have a scar from a knife wound on my chest next to my heart that I have thought of incorporating with a tattoo. Lately I’ve been thinking about a kamikaze plane crashing into it.

Needs flames and bullet holes added of course. I work for a Japanese company BTW. My dads battleship was struck by a kamikaze in WW2, he was in turret #2, everyone in Turret #1 was killed and the ship almost sank (USS Maryland).

3

There’s a period stuck on the end of the link that needs to be edited out.

4

Bees. Plenty of bees.

5

The name of my dear departed niece over my heart. She will always be in it, might as well be on it.

6

The names of my kids, possibly as an ambigram.

7

Funny you should ask. Watching TV last night I noticed a tattoo on an actress and thought that would be exactly what I would get if I ever got a tattoo. Which I will never do. It’s a mid-century modern cat.
https://imgur.com/PJjykWA

8

A tattoo artist friend almost talked me into getting a simple map of Iraq on my right bicep, with dots marking the locations I’d been to.

But then I started thinking about decades down the road, when it would start to resemble Chile.

9

Probably the endometrial cancer ribbon.

10

Probably the formula for the gaussian distribution.

\frac{1}{\sigma\sqrt{2\pi}}e^{-\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{x-\mu}{\sigma}\right)^2}

Yes, I’m a nerd.

11

“Viral Hepatitis and the Forensic Pathologist’s Table”, two things I associate with the heavily tattooed.

12

Adam Savage’s ruler tattoo.

13

I’d get a logarithmic scale on each arm and combine them to make slide rule.

14

IWW globe logo, with Educate, Agitate, Emancipate on my chest. Or a big square rigger. Failing that, a discreet Sabotabby cat.

15

IF i ever get one, it’ll probably be this

… but i probably won’t.

16

I’d be thinking practical, such as blood type (my father had that from his time in the Navy). My husband has considered getting a tattoo version of a medical alert bracelet/pendant (he’s diabetic). At my age, I’m quite aware of skin sagging and other aging that would alter the appearance of anything meant to be decorative.

17

For me, Euler’s identity equation. It’s just such a beautiful formula, and it’s even one I can understand:

ETA: I see that the quoted equation didn’t parse in the quote. Don’t know what happened, I didn’t change anything. Sorry.

18

Yes. but everyone gets the Euler equation. it’s practically the tramp stamp of mathematicians. :smile:

(not that there is anything wrong with that)

19

Well, I’m just a lowly engineer, maybe it’s original for my ilk. :laughing:

20

Something to do with my kids. No matter what happens, they will permanently be my kids, so befitting of a tattoo.