Talon: Myself and Spiral trained on my own home world. [...] The diral is a band for training, of children of the same age and the same caste. We train and live and work and eat and sleep together as a unit.
Spiral: We all got the same tattoo. See! [she and Talon point to the tattoos on their right cheeks]
Spiral: We all got the same tattoo. See! [she and Talon point to the tattoos on their right cheeks]
— Outsider
People have all kinds of ways of commemorating a shared experience, such as group photos or matching items of clothing. Some people take this to the extreme and get tattooed. This can be a deeply meaningful experience due to the process of actually getting inked, especially if the people do it together, and their permanence can make the memories even more special.
While this kind of tattoo can come about in many ways, two distinct versions show up particularly often. In one, everyone gets the exact same design. In the other, the tattoos are different but share some sort of theme that connects them. Tattoos that are halves or sections of another image and form the whole when put together as a very common way of doing this.
Related to Tattoo as Character Type, as the type/style of tattoo chosen can very closely match up to the tastes or mindset of the people getting the tattoo, or the specifics of the experience it represents. Intimate Marks can be one way this is done if the characters are lovers. They can also function as a Membership Token, especially for a secretive organization or one that prides itself on a certain identifying symbol or icon.
Compare Facial Markings and Tribal Facepaint, which can have very similar meanings.
NOTE: While Power Tattoos can share a theme, list examples of such on that page.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime and Manga
- The Gonzales brothers, players for an American team in Eyeshield 21, wanted tattoos based off of their nicknames, the elder being "Big and Useful" and the younger being "Little and Useful", rendered directly into kanji as daiben (大便) and shouben (小便). Unfortunately for them, those phrases mean "poop" and "pee" respectively.
Comic Books
- G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (Marvel): In issue #21, as Snake-Eyes is being rescued by Scarlett, a tear in his sleeve and the loose wrap around Storm Shadow's arm show that they both have a red I Ching-themed tattoo. This is eventually revealed to be the symbol of the Arashikage ninja clan, who they both trained with years prior, before its leader was assassinated by Zartan in a failed attempt to kill Snake-Eyes.
- XIII: The organization called "Conspiracy of the XX" consists of twenty members, each of whom has their rank number tattooed on their collarbone in Roman numerals. The main character has amnesia and no clue to his identity but for the number XIII (13) tattooed on his collarbone. When he eventually meets up with the woman claiming to be his wife, he notices that she has XVII tattooed in the same area as his. Eventually it is revealed that number I, the big boss of the operation, is the current president, but he had his number tattoo lasered off by a doctor who was "silenced".
- Finder: The secret society of Finders that the comic as a whole is named after have a themed tattoo as a Membership Token, which is a ladder-like stripe with a line of dots parallel to it, completely encircling part of their body. Of the major characters who are members, Jaeger has the symbol tattooed around each of his hands just below the fingers, and Rachel has it around her neck like a choker.
Fan Works
- One Piece, Two Piece, Red Piece, Blue Piece: All the members of the Straw Hat Pirates (and Vivi) have tattoos based on the Straw Hat Jolly Roger.
Films — Live-Action
- The A-Team: Everyone in the team is an Army Ranger and they use their Ranger tattoos as a sign of camaraderie.
- Baby Driver: Outlaw Couple Buddy and Darling have "Hers" and "His" respectively on their necks.
- Boondock Saints: Connor and Murphy have "VERITAS" (truth) and "AÉQUITAS" (justice) tattooed on their respective trigger fingers.
- Dude, Where's My Car? Jesse and Chester got tattoos reading "Dude" and "Sweet" on their backs, leading to a Who's on First? when they ask eachother wha their tattoos say.
- Men with Brooms: The members of Chris Cutter's curling team all have a matching tattoo of a beaver on their chests. The coach's daughter, Amy, has the same tattoo.
- Scary Movie 2 has a scene parodying the tattoo scene from Dude Where's My Car with the tattoos reading "Ray" and "Fucked Me"
- Starship Troopers: Johnny, Dizzy, Ace, and Kitten are shown getting the same "Death From Above" tattoo on their right bicep after completing basic training.
Literature
- The Dresden Files: In Death Masks, Father Forthill reveals that when he was younger, he and a few other newly-made priests had figured out that a vampire was preying on people, and worked together to stop it. Afterwards, all of them got tattoos of the Eye of Thoth and vowed to help each other in times of need, but ended up drifting apart. After he mentions that Father Vincent had been one of them, Harry, remembering the mutilated corpse with the same tattoo from earlier in the book, realizes that Father Vincent had been killed and replaced by one of the Denarians.
- The Stormlight Archive: After being freed from serving Sadeas, the men of Bridge Four all get matching forehead tattoos. For most of them it's the traditional way of covering up their Slave Brands (which are applied to the forehead), but even the members who were not slaves get the tattoo as a show of unity. The design includes figures that read "Bridge Four" to further show their loyalty to each other.
Live-Action TV
- Battlestar Galactica (2003): Starbuck and Anders mark their marriage by getting bicep tattoos that link together to form a bigger symbol.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer: In "Anne", minor characters Lily and Rickie have tattoos that form the shape of a heart with their names on the halves when put together. This becomes a plot point later on in the episode when a dead old man is revealed to have Rickie's part of the tattoo.
- Highlander: All members of the secret society called the Watchers have a unique tattoo on the inside of their right wrist.
- House of Anubis: Discussed in season 2. When Nina and Fabian are cursed by Senkhara, they're both marked with a jackal symbol on their shoulder. After they show the marks to Amber, she initially assumes that they both got matching tattoos—right before they broke up, no less.
- Law & Order: In the episode "Nullification", the detectives identify a gang of armed robbers as members of a right-wing militia based on the fact that they all have the same tattoo: an eagle with the Latin proverb "audentes Fortuna adiuvat" (Fortune favors the bold).
- Discussed Trope in an episode of The L Word when Shane goes to a tattoo artist with a girlfriend to get matching tattoos, and the artist bemoans how couples' tattoos tend to be a mark of a doomed relationship.
- Modern Family: In "Haley's 21st Birthday", Claire and Haley agree to get tattoos that say "mother" and "daughter" respectively to commemorate Haley turning 21. Unfortunately, while Claire goes through with getting her tattoo, Haley backs out at the last minute. In the epilogue, Phil says that Claire getting a tattoo has inspired him to get one of his own.
Music
- Aerosmith: In the video for "Cryin'", Alicia Silverstone's character has a half heart tattoo on her upper chest with her boyfriend (Stephen Dorff) having the other half on the web of his right hand. She's later seen getting it covered up after seeing him cheating on her with another girl.
- The narrator and subject of "Because of the Shame" by Against Me! have each other's names tattooed.
- Katy Perry: "The One That Got Away" mentions Katy and her high school lover getting matching tattoos after senior year to show their commitment. Later, after he leaves her, she hears that he got his removed to symbolize his moving on.
Tabletop Games
- BattleTech: Members of Clan Hell's Horses who successfully complete The Branding, a trial where a group of Hell's Horses warriors must successfully catch, brand, and release one of their Clan's namesake animals without harming it, get tattooed with the Mark of the Horse to show their skill. As the horses are genetically engineered carnivores that still live in herds, this is quite a difficult task and wearing the tattoo entitles them to considerable respect by their peers.
Web Original
- Looming Gaia: Some centaurs, and sometimes non-centaurs marrying them (such as the ogre divine Okatogg), traditionally get matching facial tattoos when they marry.
Webcomics
- Archipelago: The Luck brothers both have the coat-of-arms of their home island, Quillotia, tattooed on their biceps. This is how Credenza recognizes old!Riley in the Maze of Dreams.
- Outsider: The Loroi pilots Talon and Spiral trained together on Talon's home planet of Taben as part of a diral, a group of children of the same age and from the Tenoin caste. As a symbol of their group's training, they all got the same tattoo on their right cheek
, a circle with a small curl below it.
- Questionable Content: Sam uses permanent markers to draw artistic designs on robots which she calls "sprays", which are treated as temporary tattoos. In #4701, Beepatrice and her friend Millefeuille show up to get matching sprays.
- Unsounded: Spouses in Alderode get "marriage brands" tattooed over their hearts. The tattoos aren't required to have a matching design, but have a weak magical link to each other.
- Zap!: The three psychic Genocide Survivors, Gunner, Efrem and Zap, are associated with, respectively, snakes, tigers and falcons, and each of them has the silhouette of his heraldic animal tattooed on his bicep.
Western Animation
- The Owl House: In the epilogue, the Hexsquad are all shown to have gotten cardinal tattoos in tribute to Hunter's late palisman Flapjack.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: In "Whatever Happened to SpongeBob?", SpongeBob has amnesia and can't remember his friends. Patrick tries to help him remember by ripping off SpongeBob's sleeve and revealing that they both have tattoos on their biceps that when brought together, form a heart with the words "best friends" inside it.
- Total Drama: The "Celebrity Manhunt" special reveals that Duncan and Courtney have matching heart tattoos◊ on their arms, though they're never seen again after this special (possibly having removed them after their breakup).
- What If…? (2021): In "What If... Thor Were an Only Child?", during a Binge Montage, "Party Thor" and his universe's Jane Foster get tattoos of a microscope and the word "Science" and Mjolnir with the word "Magic" respectively, representing the resolution of their Magic Versus Science argument and acceptance of Clarke's Third Law.
Real Life
- Getting a themed tattoo is one way for actors to celebrate working together. Some instances:
- To celebrate the filming of Avengers: Infinity War, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, and Chris Hemsworth each got a tattoo of a variant of the Avengers logo (Mark Ruffalo, the remaining sixth member of the original Avengers team in the films, politely declined).
- Most of the cast of the Fellowship in The Lord of the Rings got tattoos of "nine" in Elvish after filming wrapped for The Return of the King. The exception was John Rhys-Davies, whose stunt double got the tattoo instead of him.
- Members of the cast of 13 Reasons Why, including Selena Gomez, got semicolon tattoos after the conclusion of the first season to represent Project Semicolon, a nonprofit organization dedicated to suicide prevention.
- Maisie Williams and Sophie Turner got "07.08.09" tattoos on their arms to mark the date they found out they'd been cast for Game of Thrones.
- Margot Robbie, Will Smith, and Joel Kinnaman gave each other "SKWAD" tattoos after Suicide Squad (2016) wrapped.
- Amanda Seyfried and others from the cast of Mamma Mia! got "Minge" tattooed on their feet.
- Kaley Cuoco and Zosia Mamet got tattoos of a paper airplane in recognition of co-starring in The Flight Attendant.
- The cast of Pretty Little Liars got the first initial of their characters' names tattooed on their index fingers.
- An apocryphal anecdote about Barack Obama is that he supposedly convinced his daughters not to get tattoos by threatening to get the same tattoo, in the same place, and showing it off at every opportunity, and so would their mother.
- There's a tattoo shop in Jerusalem that has been tattooing Christian pilgrims for centuries. Not everyone gets the same tattoo, but they all commemorate visiting the city for its Christian sites.
