Will Ferrell in Blades of Glory used his tattoos as mnemonics for all the hot figure skating trim he'd gotten over the years. Emily Gould's using hers as nut graphs or something for her forthcoming essay collection. And now there's a whole website that lets you signpost your erudition through skin ink. Some readers are strict formalists: one guy's got an ellipsis on his wrist, I guess because a semicolon would have been pretentious. Others are fond of Vonnegut and Thomas. But if there's a discernible trend here, it's in the damaged goods department. Meet the smarter version of the tramp stamp: call it the borderline blazon. Sylvia Plath on either arm? Naturally. A lengthy disquisition about love and hate and learning to control the masterful tyrant in you, courtesy of psychiatrist Theodore Isaac Rubin? Well, boys, you can't say the girl didn't warn you. A photo montage after the jump.

Mistah hipstah. He dead.

As you can see by my Harriet the Spy tattoo, I embrace the child in me and bite my thumb during sex.

Oh dear. [Contrariwise]