The Temple of Dysonism

Clean On The Inside

Up until last year I couldn’t see myself getting a tattoo at any point - I’d sort of disregarded them as quite ugly little things that would look a bit shit when I got older. But the more tattoo’s I saw on people I knew (and some who I wouldn’t have expected to have them), and the more I thought about it, the more the idea started to grow on me. As long as you don’t go and do something silly (like get the name of a fling you’re seeing tattooed across your face, only to have them leave you after a week because you look ridiculous), you choose something that has meaning to you and helps defines you and it’s somewhat concealable then what have you got to lose? And let’s be frank; none of us are going to look at our best once we hit our 60’s or whatever, so who cares what it’ll look like at that age.

The big question is of course, what do you get? And as the idea started to grow on me as the weeks went by, I had a few ideas. Obviously, what with gaming being such a massive part of my life it was going to be gaming related. There were the typical video game icons (which I haven’t totally dismissed) such as the Triforce, the Mario sprite, Space Invaders, Sonic etc etc. At one point I was seriously considering the Sex Bob-omb logo from the film Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World as it is my favourite film (as I’ve written before, it’s as if someone sat down in a board room of writers and said ‘Right, we need to make a film for a Mr. Lewis Speller. This is what he likes, this is what he is like. Go.’) but I dropped that the moment this idea popped in to my head about 8 months ago.

In the Mario series there are numerous characters, enemies, items or even scenes you could potentially take as tattoo ideas. One of the characters that has been with the series almost from the very start is the ghost, Boo. Boo is a relatively simple ghost but with one huge characteristic that defines him - he is incredibly shy. When you are in a room with Boo, he will chase you and try to bite you so that you’ll lose health - but, if you look at him, he freezes on the spot, turns transparent, covers his eyes and blushes.. and is no longer a threat. And it is this image of Boo, covering his eyes, that I’d like to get.

Top right Boo. Not pixellated.

And ever since the idea came about in my head, I’ve loved it. It’s original, it’s inoffensive and it’s personal to me. It carries the extra stroke of brilliance that whenever you look at it, it will of course be hiding from you.. and yeah. The Mario games are absolutely classic, and core to who I am as much as they are core to gaming itself. I look forward to getting it done.

The last thing I settled on this week was where to get it done - obviously it needs to be somewhere concealable for I don’t want it to affect me in a professional sense - and that leaves me with two real options. The first was on my arm somewhere, which I decided against in favour of my shoulder, or more precisely, just below the shoulder on my chest. I’ve also had a recommendation on which parlour to get it done at, so I’m not going in blind.

I’m pretty damn excited, if not a little nervous. I’ll let you know what happens!