Tattooverse

Tropes and genres
Related tropes/genres	Alpha/Beta/Omega
See also	Cakeverse, Nameverse, Pistilverse
Related articles on Fanlore.

Tattooverse (타투버스) is a trope in South Korean fandoms created by 김겁진 (transl. Kim Geop-jin, username jkiikj1122) in July 2014.

Basic elements

• Heartling: A person born with a partially ruby red tattooed heart somewhere on their body. Its position determines the course of their lives because the tattooed place is where one's natural talent lies: for example, a tattoo on the finger means they'll become a pianist, while a tattoo on the tongue makes them eloquent enough to be celebrities or do other jobs that require rhetorical abilities.
• None Heartling: A person born with a black tattoo on their body. They can ask a tattooist to hide their condition.

Just because a parent is a Heartling, it does not mean that their children will be a Heartling as well.

If a Heartling's tattoo touches a None, the None will feel extreme pain and suffer from side effects: for example, if the tattoo is on the neck, the None will lose their voice, and the larger the area of contact, the longer the time the effect lasts. That's why the government has issued a policy that requires people to cover their tattoos, even though a few Heartlings don't follow the rule, but proudly display their tattoos and take advantage of the suffering of Nones to commit violence, rape, and even murder.

Nones and Heartlings can make a deal named "engraving" that is only terminated when either one of them dies, and it is established when the Heartling's tattoo fully touches the None. Contrary to regular contacts, after the engraving the None isn't penalized even if they're touched by another Heartling's tattoo. Heartlings, on the contrary, suffer from side effects when their tattoo touches a different None.