Menet’s Tattoos
Fantastic friends, it’s time for us to learn about something I’ve neglected to spend any time describing: Menet’s tattoos. She is half Varisian as you (hopefully) know, and one key marker of Varisian folks is that they often have tattoos, and quite a few. Some are even born with the rare “birth tattoo” which was technically the first tattoo Menet ever received. She didn’t know about this phenomenon until she was 16 however, and so was always told by her family that she was simply marked by Khepri. She often chalked the eerily detailed scarab tattoo on her right arm up to chance – and considered it a weird birthmark. She still doesn’t believe it means much of anything, and thinks it’s just a marker of her Varisian heritage, more than anything. The intricacy of the scarab tattoo comes from its many whorls and designs contained within. It is not a lifelike representation of the beetle, but instead looks like an artistic rendition.
Now, on to the other tattoos! I believe I’ve mentioned in the campaign that she has two facial tattoos, but I’m not 100% sure of that. Either way, we’re going to talk about it now. Menet’s tattoo style is “whatever looks nice.” That doesn’t mean none of her tattoos have any significance, it just means that some are simply there for aesthetics. Hence, her first facial tattoo, which she got at the age of 16 to mark the start of her journey away from home. It is a half-inch wide blue line that extends from one ear to the other, going over the bridge of her nose. She got this tattoo in particular because she saw a Varisian harrower with several lines across her face, and thought it looked beautiful.
The second tattoo she got on her face (not long after the first) was more symbolic. She started to feel homesick upon leaving Osirion, and so she got a simple shen ring in the center of her forehead, about an inch above her eyebrows. It is the same shade of blue as the line mainly because she wanted to match, but also because the color blue represents health, youth, and beauty. This may seem strange considering Menet’s apparent lack of vanity, but she sees beauty as a part of life, and celebrates it as a part of herself because there is no reason to deny it.
The third tattoo she got was on her left arm, in the same location as her birth tattoo on the other arm. She wanted to balance the scarab, and further represent her culture and homeland. Continuing the theme she started with her shen circle (which represents all that the sun circles in Osirion), she decided to get a tattoo of a phoenix (benu), which also represents the sun. It matches the tone of her birth tattoo, however her birth tattoo has always maintained a slight lustre and sheen in its blackness that her other tattoo simply cannot. She considers all of these symbols of her dedication to Khepri as he is linked to the rising sun and to Ra.
The final tattoo she has is a rather large, detailed piece that she has been slowly building on. It is across her shoulders and extends to the middle of her back, and contains as many colors as possible, representing various things to her fellow Varisians. It includes orange, pink, green, blue, turquoise, violet, and red. It is a stylized wagon wheel (think Roma Chakra) surrounded by flowers and whorls to make it more aesthetically pleasing. She has had various flowers added over time, most notably, hyacinthe winding through the spokes.
And those are all of Menet’s tattoos! I thought about using some image references between the text, but at the same time, I think it’s fun to let you all imagine these tattoos as you like. So for those of you who prefer to imagine it yourself, I’ll leave it up to your imagination.
Here are some links for those of you who’d like to see what I was looking at for reference:
I got into this series while I was in high school (around 15ish) after it was recommended to me by the boy I was dating at the time. He was 16, dyed his hair black, smoked, wore skinny jeans, had a lip ring and told me he had to get electroshock therapy every Monday to manage his schizophrenia or something like that – all of which I thought officially made him the coolest person who could possibly exist. Alas, my relationship with this edgy punk lasted only three weeks – but it started me down the path of a much longer but no less turbulent relationship with Anita Blake.
With her Browning, penguin stuffed animals, sassy coffee mugs and the ability to reanimate the dead Anita spends 9 books facing down a terrifying and wildly entertaining cast of zombies, vampires, shapeshifters, voodoo priests, evil circus performers and every other horror staple you can think of. She has a classic torrid love triangle with a hot werewolf and an equally hot vampire – both of whom are well fleshed out characters in their own right, with their own struggles and needs that often conflict with Anita’s. Her relationship with Edward, a fellow monster hunter, is still one of my favorite slow burn literary friendships to this day and the book that really expands on the development of that friendship, Obsidian Butterfly, is my favorite novel in the series.