after the rapture, people got their eden tattoos at 10 years (imc) old, which in earth years (eic) would have been between 18 and 19 (imc to eic conversion was "imc*1.88=eic").
the tattoos signified adulthood, in addition to loyalty to eden. it was considered a great honor and a blessing, because it meant you survived long enough to actually get it. they started doing them a few years after the rapture first happened; all the adults got them done first before they started performing them on 10th birthdays.
it wasn't voluntary. i remember being really apprehensive about the whole thing, by the time my 10th birthday rolled around it was a relatively new process. my mother did everything she could to reassure me; she was one of the first to get hers when the adults first started having them done. it isn't because she was fully on board with The Everything, it's because she knew it would keep me safeβ on eden, at least. and it did, until i got captured and everything but it's not like that was her fault at all (considering she had already Also been captured by that point, for some years).
there's a fucked up part of me that almost misses it. i didn't want the tattoo in the first place, and my feelings about eden are. complicated, to say the absolute least. but it was home. you can't fault me too much for wanting something that reminds me of home, right?
...it's weird sometimes. feeling at my neck and not being met with scar tissue. i know it's better this way but. well, i mean i'm not a stranger to wanting things that i know aren't good for me.
- the convict (iron lung)π©Έπ
