So today it's back to writing. Oh yeah, and as I just updated my Facebook status to read: "Laini Taylor is probably going to design a tattoo today. For your FACE." hahaha. True! I need to design a Rathersting tattoo today, which I shall get printed as a rub-on tattoo, which you can then put on your face and look ferocious and warrior-faerie-like. Fun, no?
Speaking of facial tattoos, when I do school visits I give the school the option of sending me some photos of kids ahead of time and I photoshop Rathersting tattoos onto their faces as a surprise. (If you haven't read Blackbringer, the warrior clan, to which the character Talon belongs, have fierce Maori-inspired tattoos on their faces, which I think is just SO COOL.) The photos are fun, harmless, no actual ink involved. No actual children are altered in any way. But the last school got a major complaint from a parent that their child had been desecrated. They demanded the photos be destroyed. Poor secretary, having to field that call, and poor kid, growing up in a world where that's a big deal! Sigh. Imagine what else is a big fuss on a daily basis!
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News: Papua New Guinea is at it again: that is, making headlines for the discovery of new species! More than 50 new species, including tree frogs, geckos, and jumping spiders, have been identified for the first time by a Conservation International expedition. How cool is it to know there are yet unexplored corners of the planet teeming with critters never seen by the eyes of man? I don't know about you, but I have a total fascination for stories about old-time naturalists and their collecting expeditions to remote places filled with mist and spiny fruit and creatures that must have looked to Europeans like they just crawled out of spaceships. So cool to think there are still unknown critters!
On a grim note, an Indonesian fisherman was killed by Komodo dragons while trespassing on a remote island in their protected national park. Awful. You know, there are very few places on Earth where dragons are known to abide. Would you go looking for fruit there? Komodo dragons weren't discovered until 1910. Imagine being the first person to see this:
They grow to almost 10 feet in length, there's venom in their saliva, and they attack by stealth and go for the throat. You know what? Stay off their island, man.
15 comments:
I would totally rock one of your tatoos! I think that's great! I bet the kids love those when you visit!
I think your idea of photoshopping the tattoo art is very clever. I am trying to imagine any parents I know having a problem with that...most of them seek fame and glory for their offspring.
My instinct tells me that there was more going on with that parent than just your photo. As I tell librarians when they worry about a book challenge, "it is never JUST about the book."
You might try your idea with pictures of teachers. Kids love to see their teachers featured in fun like this.
How wonderful! Ya know, kids love to identify with characters and what a superb way to allow this: your tattoos! I would love one! What might have happened if Harry Potter scar tattoos hit the mainstream! Wooooo-hoooo! Once again, Laini, you have got 'it' goin' on, girl!
Suz
I think the tattoo idea is cute, too. But the teacher idea from BookMoot is really clever!
My favorite part about Komodo dragons is that after they bite you, they just kind of hang out, following you around and waiting for you to be dead enough to eat.
Awesome.
I know! They terrify me! They just have a kind of cold, dead malice in their eyes, I think. Maybe I'm just confusing them with other dragons I have met, but I would not step onto that island.
'No children were altered'. Heeheehee.
ooh! Komodo dragons! I remember that my favorite Croc Hunter episode was one where Steve almost got his leg bitten off by one!
I think the taattoo idea is great, and that some people are strange.
And speaking of cute baby animals (your money, that is, not the komodo dragons), have you seen the new baby leopards at the D.C. zoo?
I think that I would rather be followed till dead than torn to shreds while still living, if given the choice.
Did I ever tell you Fatty that my parents had given David, my other brother, Jeremiah, and I a little komodo dragon named Pineapple for Hanukkah back in 1978 but then Pineapple ate Jeremiah and so Pineapple was sent back to an island somewhere- I think Maui. Thats why I have never mentioned Jeremiah before.
Your idea of Photoshopping tattoos onto kids' faces as a surprise is just genius. I hope you don't stop doing it. Although I love the alter-the-teacher idea from BookMoot, too--what a riot that would be for the kids!
Komodo dragons...*shiver*. Whatever island they have, they can keep. Being killed by anything is of course awful, but being killed by reptiles bigger than you are seems just too horribly prehistoric.
What a fabulous idea! I think that could be a totally awesome feature for your website, actually: let people upload their own picture for face-tattooing. Everyone can be a Rathersting for a day! (And you could also have a pink hair option!)
Also, if there's one thing everyone should have ingrained in them in the womb, it's that dragons are not to be trifled with.
I wouldn't mind wearing a rathersting tatoo for a bit. Not for very long, I'm picky about tattoos, even temporary ones, but I might have some fun with facepaint...
If you have legal counsel, ask if there's a statute of limitation on how long after this event the family might be able to bring a lawsuit against the school and possibly you. Hopefully, as innocent as your idea sounds, the school asked for and got signed permission from the parents to allow you to do what you did.
Otherwise, a family with a Komodo Dragon lawyer might litigate this into a money-maker for the family and Dragon. Signed permission slips might be your legal-out in the future or having a copy of said list to match up to photos you tattoo. Assume someone will eventually claim their child suffered trauma and nightmares, requiring counseling after seeing their face tattooed. Imagine a crying child in a courtroom with a Child Psychologist's supporting testimony that such a photo traumatized the child. Today's world is filled with strange parents, strange beliefs, and what-have-you. It's pretty sad. Hope I am wrong, though.
I read somewhere half (or close to half) the world's species are estimated to be undiscovered by science. Worse, they're estimated to be disappearing at a rapid rate. So, a species which might cure cancer or other diseases, may become extinct before science can discover the species.
Oh, I'm staying off the island. Eesh.
A few short hours ago I was gazing at a HUGE Komodo Dragon at the L.A. zoo - the very one which bit Sharon Stone's husband a while back. I would not think entering a cage with a lizard that can eat a horse would be a good idea. And I wouldn't land on their island either.
Oh yeah! Try it on teachers! That is a GREAT idea. Kids love DO love that. The biggest fund-raiser we ever had every year at the school I worked, was the one where you get to buy tickets to dunk the teachers, and the one where they draw a name, and the winner got to shave off a (male) teachers hair. LOL
:)
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