2021-12-22 3:00:14 ¶ ●

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Have you posted the Gideon but Tattooed art from your twitter anywhere tumblr? If not, would you be willing to? I think it's lovely and I'd love to reblog it so I can find it later...

Thank you, I’m glad you like it! I keep forgetting to post things in both places, I need a schedule or something.

ALT

reasoning behind the tats is open to interpretation but my personal inference is:

The black wave-like scales running up her arm and the side of her body - I initially wanted them to be blue to symbolize waves (to represent the salt-water confession scene), but they didn’t look good in blue so I turned them black. In general, I wanted her tattoos to start out black/monochrome at the bottom and turn colourful at the top, to kind of symbolize that Gideon was raised in the 9th house but she never really fit in there but it’s still a fundamental part of her. The wings are both as angel symbolism but specifically because Gideon always wanted to leave the 9th house before she came to Canaan House. The sun with the yellow in the middle is because I see golden yellow as Gideon’s thematic colour. The one ray of the run that’s running up the line of her spine has the houses that impacted Gideon most greatly in Book 1, so there’s Saturn for the terrible kids’ whose deaths she feels guilty over, there’s the symbol for the planet Venus for Cytherea, there’s the symbol for Earth for Canaan House, and there’s Pluto for the Ninth House. (I didn’t put Jupiter/5th House in there bc I feel like it belongs to Harrow’s set more.) The 69 is there both because of the 6th and 9th house friendship and of course Gideon would get at least one stupid tattoo that Harrow would despair over. (Cam says “nice” and nothing else when she sees it.) The skull on her back between her shoulder blades is ofc the jawless 9th house skull. There’s an infinity symbol around the i x both to symbolize that no matter how much gideon wanted to leave the 9th house, she’s inevitably tied to it and later chooses to be tied to it via Harrow, but also to symbolize the weird and long-standing link between the 1st house and 9th house, and how gideon kind of joins them together just by existing. The thorny vines running down her back that form a T-shape when combined with the long sun ray and the red sword are a deliberate allusion to the cross. The crown of swords above the skull’s head is again a Jesus allusion, as is the red sword running through the crown. The red sword in the middle of thorns is also specifically to represent Gideon impaling herself at the end of GtN to save Harrow. The flower coming out of the skull is yellow because again I see it as Gideon’s colour, but also because Harrow called Gideon the first flower of her house. The flowers curling around her shoulder blades are sea-green because a) I love that colour and how good it looks against her skull and b) for some reason it’s the exact shade I pictured the water in the salt-water confession scene to be. The forget-me-nots on her arms are there to refer to the bible verse that Harrow said about Gideon “If I forget you, let my right hand be forgotten.” The phases of the moon going across her back are because Harrow absolutely forbade Gideon to get her name tattooed on her, so Gideon got the fucking moon plastered across her back because it symbolizes Harrow.