Thats an unwritten rule. Never ask the meaning of the nautical stars. Broadly, it's about a safe return home or keeping your direction in life. But specifically, people tend to get these for very fucked up reasons, and the conversation is just better avoided. Like, "i do <insert bad thing>, and dont really intend to stop, but these star tattoos remind me to try to follow the right path".
Seafarer here. Nautical star represents Polaris, or the north star. Its all about finding your way home.
During the 90s/00s they were popularised by emo/nu metal music. Became synonymous with the genre so people just got them because they looked cool and represented their crowd. Maybe symbolises some kind of struggle for some people, in which you're lost and find your way back to yourself.
People definitely do get them for lots of reasons. Including no meaning, they just saw it in a book and thought it looked cool. But in general asking about them is a minefield where you'll often suddenly be in an awkward conversation where a complete stranger is oversharing about their personal demons.
I used to go to this Subway where the guy had a large scorpion tattooed on his neck and up into his face. I went there enough that we were friendly acquaintances so eventually I asked "Is that cuz you're a scorpio?" and he goes, "No, it's cuz I'm a fucking dumbass"
I love when people ask the meaning of my tattoos. It's usually like, "that's for my folks, that one is my dog that died, that one is my favorite hockey team, the other 10? I had 200 bucks and a couple of hours of free time
Right I totally understand where you’re coming from. I got mine so long ago idk the reasoning but I know the reason. That’s ok tho casue they all mean something to me whether it makes sense or not.
I have a tribal "C" on one upper arm and that's what I tell people as well. "Here is an awesome sleeve I put a ton of time into and thought about it very carefully and got it all done when I was in my late 30s. And here's one I got off of the random wall of flash art the day I turned 18 in the year 2000 after thinking about it for 5 minutes".
I'm getting it covered up with a crescent moon whenever I start working on my other arm sleeve soon, but it's a good conversation piece/warning whenever someone brings up wanting tattoos.
Now I'm tempted to get a tattoo just so I can have an awful rambling story about it.
I mean, I've already made up a whole dog breed and story about why they were particularly useful to answer people who ask 'so what breed is she?' about my mishmash mongrel dog.
And a whole bunch of shaggy dog stories about the tip-ex mines and that's where white mice came from, and Ostriches from Austria carring coconuts to drop on people's heads.
At that point? Maybe Shadows Fall... maybe Killswitch Engage.. I'm pretty sure I got the star around the same time I went to Hellfest in Syracuse, so something in that vein. I've never been a "favorite" band person because it changes too frequently.
My original plan was full sleeves on both sides but life gets in the way. I haven't had a new tattoo since 2011 and I don't know what I would get at this point.
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u/Rymanbc 4d ago
Thats an unwritten rule. Never ask the meaning of the nautical stars. Broadly, it's about a safe return home or keeping your direction in life. But specifically, people tend to get these for very fucked up reasons, and the conversation is just better avoided. Like, "i do <insert bad thing>, and dont really intend to stop, but these star tattoos remind me to try to follow the right path".