Tattoos as Metalminds

[Trusk'our he/him]

Tattoos carry various partials of metals in their ink depending on their color, such as copper (blue), iron and cadmium (red), chromium and aluminum (green), zinc (white and yellow).

Does this mean that you could potentially use a tattoo with Allomantically viable metals as an exotic Metalmind that cannot easily be removed or destroyed?

Additionally, we've seen from Wax that Metalmind implants must be immune to oxidization, otherwise his Ironmind implants would have poisoned him. So would a Tattoomind (Skinmind? Designmind? What's a good name for it?) be more accepted by the body and not cause irritation and possible infection like regular tattoos? I also imagine you could add more metal to the mix than a regular tattoo if you wanted (for more Feruchemical storage), as you wouldn't need to worry about it poisoning you due to its Invested nature.

[Treamayne]

11 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

Tattoos carry various partials of metals in their ink depending on their color, such as copper (blue), iron and cadmium (red), chromium and aluminum (green), zinc (white and yellow).

Not all tattoo inks carry metals, there were centuries of plant-based inks as tattoos before the first mass-market metal-based coloring was developed or used.

Also, since Sazed's Rings in WoA were barely able to hold a few minutes of Feruchemical charge, and the amount of metal in tattoo ink is not only mixed (and therefore a non-viable alloy) but also many many fractions less, I doubt that even if you were able to consider it as a metal mind (assuming only one metal was used and it matched your ability) you would get more than a second or three of charge out of a full sleeve tattoo. Maybe up to 30 seconds charge if you tattto your whole body. And that's a whole lot of mental and physical hoops to jump through for a tiny portion of metal to use as a metalmind.

 

[alder24]

1 hour ago, Trusk'our said:

Tattoos carry various partials of metals in their ink depending on their color, such as copper (blue), iron and cadmium (red), chromium and aluminum (green), zinc (white and yellow).

Does this mean that you could potentially use a tattoo with Allomantically viable metals as an exotic Metalmind that cannot easily be removed or destroyed?

Additionally, we've seen from Wax that Metalmind implants must be immune to oxidization, otherwise his Ironmind implants would have poisoned him. So would a Tattoomind (Skinmind? Designmind? What's a good name for it?) be more accepted by the body and not cause irritation and possible infection like regular tattoos? I also imagine you could add more metal to the mix than a regular tattoo if you wanted (for more Feruchemical storage), as you wouldn't need to worry about it poisoning you due to its Invested nature.

Sure, if they're a pure combination of Allomantic/Feruchemical metals then you can use them as metalminds or burn them Automatically, but the amount of metals is tiny, you wouldn't be able to store much in them. Not to mention a tattoo ink has multiple different metals, most aren't Allomantic. Not very useful. A quick google search:

Quote

The total concentrations of metals in the 16 analysed tattoo ink samples ranged from 0.060 to 16.9 g/kg. Zinc is the most present metal in the samples, in fact it is in the range 3.4–13882 mg/kg. - source 

The table 3, lower in the source, shows that for example the concentration of iron Fe varies from 14 mg to 160 mg per 1 k. Milligrams! That's nothing. And iron has the biggest numbers in the table (except for zinc with 14 g). And those metals are probably mostly in forms of molecules, like zinc is in ZnO, so they are useless.

 

1 hour ago, Treamayne said:

Also, since Sazed's Rings in WoA were barely able to hold a few minutes of Feruchemical charge

I don't think he had the time to fill them fully. 

[Trusk'our he/him]

1 hour ago, Treamayne said:

Also, since Sazed's Rings in WoA were barely able to hold a few minutes of Feruchemical charge, and the amount of metal in tattoo ink is not only mixed (and therefore a non-viable alloy) but also many many fractions less, I doubt that even if you were able to consider it as a metal mind (assuming only one metal was used and it matched your ability) you would get more than a second or three of charge out of a full sleeve tattoo. Maybe up to 30 seconds charge if you tattto your whole body. And that's a whole lot of mental and physical hoops to jump through for a tiny portion of metal to use as a metalmind.

18 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Sure, if they're a pure combination of Allomantic/Feruchemical metals then you can use them as metalminds or burn them Automatically, but the amount of metals is tiny, you wouldn't be able to store much in them. Not to mention a tattoo ink has multiple different metals, most aren't Allomantic. Not very useful. A quick google search:

The table 3, lower in the source, shows that for example the concentration of iron Fe varies from 14 mg to 160 mg per 1 k. Milligrams! That's nothing. And iron has the biggest numbers in the table (except for zinc with 14 g). And those metals are probably mostly in forms of molecules, like zinc is in ZnO, so they are useless.

What if you had a tattoo specifically made for Feruchemists that had a much, much larger amount of Feruchemically viable metal, as you wouldn't have to worry about being poisoned because of the Investiture?

[Treamayne]

26 minutes ago, alder24 said:

I don't think he had the time to fill them fully. 

Correct they were not full, but neither were they expansive (WoA Ch 50):

Spoiler

It would take weeks to fill even a ring’s worth of metal—and he barely had days. In fact, Sazed was surprised the koloss had waited so long.

Three days. Not much time at all, but he suspected he would need every available edge in the approaching conflict. So far he’d been able to store up a small amount of each attribute. Enough for a boost in an emergency, once his other metalminds ran out.

So, Sazed notes that at the rate he stores (since we never get his "percentages") that it ould take him weeks to fill a ring - and that he stored these attributes for three days. We also know that his "three days'" storage of speed was expended in less than five minutes (probably much less, but I'm rounding up). So, rough math says that (14/3)*4 = roughly 20 minutes or less of feruchemical charge in a ring at the rate Sazed tapped them in that fight. At best.

10 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

had a much, much larger amount of Feruchemically viable metal, as you wouldn't have to worry about being poisoned because of the Investiture?

What makes you think that metal poisoning would nto be a factor? 

Also, one square inch of tattoo is approzimately 1/24th ounce of ink - so even if your ink was 95% metal, it would take at least 25 square inches of tattoo to make 1 ounce of metal for a metalmind. White Sand spoilers:

Spoiler

If you want magic tattoos, you would be better off going to the Darkside of Taldain:

Quote

Questioner

Can you tell us anything about the Darkside of White Sand?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. We are hoping to do a story set there once the omnibus is out. It might graphic novel, it might be print. There is some very cool stuff about the way that the other sun works, and the magic involves tattoos. It's very nifty. We will get to it eventually. 

 

 

[alder24]

13 hours ago, Treamayne said:

Correct they were not full, but neither were they expansive (WoA Ch 50):

  Reveal hidden contents

It would take weeks to fill even a ring’s worth of metal—and he barely had days. In fact, Sazed was surprised the koloss had waited so long.

Three days. Not much time at all, but he suspected he would need every available edge in the approaching conflict. So far he’d been able to store up a small amount of each attribute. Enough for a boost in an emergency, once his other metalminds ran out.

So, Sazed notes that at the rate he stores (since we never get his "percentages") that it ould take him weeks to fill a ring - and that he stored these attributes for three days. We also know that his "three days'" storage of speed was expended in less than five minutes (probably much less, but I'm rounding up). So, rough math says that (14/3)*4 = roughly 20 minutes or less of feruchemical charge in a ring at the rate Sazed tapped them in that fight. At best.

Less than 5 minutes? Less than 10 seconds I would say - he used them for two short bursts of power during his fight with Marsh - and we don't know his tapping rate. We have far too little information to make any assessments. He could be talking about weeks as 2 weeks, but he could also mean 6 weeks, or 8 weeks. Sazed uses rings and earring regularly for storing attributes - they are certainly useful and can store enough attributes to justify wearing them. 3 days of storing is just a fraction of what a ring can hold.

13 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

What if you had a tattoo specifically made for Feruchemists that had a much, much larger amount of Feruchemically viable metal, as you wouldn't have to worry about being poisoned because of the Investiture?

I don't know much about tattoos but it seems to me that it's a combination of different molecules (not elements) that makes the ink works. Most of the tattoo ink is some volatile component (ethanol, solvents, etc.), even up to 95% of it. From the document linked earlier, at best ~1% of tattoo ink is made out of metals, most are Allomantically inert like Barium. Most samples however had much less metals than that, less than a gram or 1/10 of a gram per 1 kg of ink. Most of Allomantically viable metals are bound in molecules, like ZnO, which works as a sunscreen - probably useless for you. So no, just pumping liquid iron under your skin won't be a tattoo ink. Just do what Wax and Wayne did in TLM and insert your metalmind under your skin surgically. 

Plus I second Treamayne, there is nothing indicating that Feruchemist are immune to heavy metal poisoning - they don't need this, they don't swallow metals and don’t metabolize them like Allomancers, they only touch them. 

Spoiler

rederel

Now i'm morbidly curious whether u/mistborn has considered it [cadmium poisoning] while writing his books.

Brandon Sanderson

I have, actually. Though I had to consider it for other metals first. I decided that allomancers are immune to these kinds of effects--they're just physiologically different in that regard.

General Reddit 2021 (June 11, 2021)