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What about tatoos when you shift into gestalt form?

Can someone see them on your fur (darker fur at that areas) or is it on the skin under the fur ? Well that are questions that go around in my head...

Covered with fur.

Next!

yes, that was that what i tought...

If someone gets a tattoo, you skin will be shaved before they make it. So after the tattoo is on, the hair just grows back. So I don't see why the colors should be different or something.

Hair isn't the only issue, the skin stretches as well and then retracts. The regeneration prevents stretch marks and such but the ink is not part of your body. In fact I could forsee the tatoo vanishing after shifting and never returning as the body could view it as a scar and thus bleed out the ink and heal the scar in the werewolf form.

I always imagined it disappearing...although I didn't think about why it disappeared, I just wanted it to.

It was just a story I wrote several years ago...it was set in medieval times when they tattooed slaves, so the werewolf slave character cheated and shifted it off and hence was able to escape authority notice.

I just didn't go into any science...so I'm thrilled to see a thread!

lol... I can imagine a newbie werewolf asking for a refund from the local tatooist saying he used invisible ink...

"Dood... I just saw that tatoo a second ago! You ripped me off!!! I want my money back!"

definately covered by the fur....no change in appearance would be visible in fur color....

I imagine tattos would be completley destroyed in a shift due to the fact that a tattoo would not be associated with the lycanthropy virus.

yeah...perhaps also with all the streacthing that the skin would udergo it would be over time out of shape and distorted......

Yeah... I don't think tattoo's would last longer than the first one or two shifts afterward, if even that.

Between the surface alteration and distortions associated with shifting and the natural breaking-down of the inks by the body likely being accelerated by the lycanthropic healing factor...

Some guy could start out with a bold, vivid tattoo of Christie Brinkley...

and a few weeks later...

he looks like he's got a worn, faded-out tattoo of David Bowie.

ChaosWolf wrote: Some guy could start out with a bold, vivid tattoo of Christie Brinkley...

and a few weeks later...

he looks like he's got a worn, faded-out tattoo of David Bowie.

ughhhhh!!!!! How repulsive!

I think it would get progressively distorted untill you look like you have a faded bruise when then vanishes. Fur would cover it, though.

In real life hair just grows over tattoos, blurring or obscuring them. Depending on your preference though you could have the tattoo dye the hair (ala Surf's Up's Cody Maverick) or you could have the hair shaved/removed in the tattooed area.

I may be repeating someone else's suggestion, but...

Lycanthropy's regenerative capabilities might wash out tattoos fairly quickly. Among those in my storyline, tattoos would last maybe a week or so. It would get hidden under fur, but if you shaved, the tattoo would appear distorted where the skin stretched to fit the animal or Gestalt form. (Technically, my werewolves don't have a fixed Gestalt form; they shift to wolves and can assume a Gestalt form by stopping mid-shift. One can also be more human-like or more wolf-like in appearance.)

Scott Gardener wrote:I may be repeating someone else's suggestion, but...

Lycanthropy's regenerative capabilities might wash out tattoos fairly quickly. Among those in my storyline, tattoos would last maybe a week or so. It would get hidden under fur, but if you shaved, the tattoo would appear distorted where the skin stretched to fit the animal or Gestalt form. (Technically, my werewolves don't have a fixed Gestalt form; they shift to wolves and can assume a Gestalt form by stopping mid-shift. One can also be more human-like or more wolf-like in appearance.)

Don't tell that to the Lon Chaney Jr. Wolf-man fans: they get nasty and bite your ankles.

I'd personally find a way to get an artificial scar. Find some sort of benign bacteria that'll just stunt the healing of the skin after the operation or whatever.

Yeah, tats wouldnt be visable in wolf/gestalt form. The fur would cover that up, unless you turn into a Harry Potter bald werewolf thingy But a bald were, or shaved one would have a distorted tattoo, like Scott already said. Proably a good thing too. A ww hunter or something could then reconize you in your human form if it did show.

I wonder, would a brand maybe show through fur? Like a design on a peice of burning hot iron pressed into the skin...

Silverclaw wrote:Yeah, tats wouldnt be visable in wolf/gestalt form. The fur would cover that up, unless you turn into a Harry Potter bald werewolf thingy But a bald were, or shaved one would have a distorted tattoo, like Scott already said. Proably a good thing too. A ww hunter or something could then reconize you in your human form if it did show.

I wonder, would a brand maybe show through fur? Like a design on a peice of burning hot iron pressed into the skin...

Since a brand is a scar in a recognizable form or shape, I guess it would depend on whether Were's made scar tissue or just healed over everything.
Point to consider, though, is that burns are a totally different animal when it comes to treatment and healing: I've been cut and healed clean, yet been burned (and not that badly) and have a small scar where it happened.
So, maybe Were's don't heal burns much better than Smoothskins, and get scars that would show as messed up fur or something like that. That would be a good plot device, since it would be a visible connection between a Were' and a Smooth- as being the same person. Ouch!

Silverclaw wrote:I wonder, would a brand maybe show through fur? Like a design on a peice of burning hot iron pressed into the skin...

Might depend on what kind of brand it is. There are two, hot and cold. Hot burns the hair off and well..burns. A cold brand strips all of the pigment out of the hair, which grows back in white.

when one aquires a burn, the skin may heal, but without pores, and so can niether sweat nor grow hair from that spot. its doesnt matter how fast or well the were heals. the burned area will never grow hair.

kitetsu wrote:I'd personally find a way to get an artificial scar. Find some sort of benign bacteria that'll just stunt the healing of the skin after the operation or whatever.

In some tribes in Africa, they initiate children into adulthood by scarring them, in that they cut a design into the skin, and then rub ashes into the wounds to promote inflammation that, in turn, promotes the formation of the desired scars.

First off, you're assuming that piercings and tattoos would 'take' as opposed to 'instantly heal'. One way to tell a true werewolf would be their utter lack of bodily scarification.

(Question: What if you got the tattoo in werewolf form?)
Assumeing the artist knows about what you are and isn't completely freaked out by it, of course.

kitetsu wrote:I'd personally find a way to get an artificial scar. Find some sort of benign bacteria that'll just stunt the healing of the skin after the operation or whatever.

Stunting the healing wouldn't scar. Scar tissue results from the body healing something too quickly - throwing a bunch of tissue at the injury and sorting it out later.

Given the high regeneration of lycanthropes, they'd probably scar lots easier than normal humans. Burning/scarring a design into their flesh would probably work easier than a tattoo.

But it'd hurt a helluva lot more.