Neo-traditional flash design of a dark-haired pin-up character in a black bodice, with banners reading Waiting for true love's kiss, roses and a rope frame.

Pin-up character with banners and roses

Neo-trad · Colour · Flash

A dark-haired, pin-up style female character with a large pink hair bow raises one arm and rests her head on her other hand, with a small heart pendant at her neck. She is framed by an oval rope border, curling ribbon banners with lettering, red roses and green leaves. The bold outlines and soft shading are set against a pale cream background, with colour dominating the design.

Neo-trad Traditional Pin-up Woman Banner Ribbon Rose Rope frame Heart Leaves Lettering

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Ivy had the ribbon half lettered when the rain came in off the bay, and she swore at the brush for the third time that morning. Behind her the booth smelt of size and turpentine. Mr Fennick wanted the banners freshened before the August crowds, and he wanted them to say what they always had, in gold leaf on oxblood red, because the sleeping girl in the glass case had been pulling punters up the pier since before the war.

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She had never liked the girl's face. Too sweet, too finished, with painted lashes that never got tired. The rose-garlanded frame was fine work, though, and Ivy had done the roses herself, one petal at a time, the summer her husband went to sea and came back a different man.

The stranger came in out of the rain on the Tuesday, a woman in a man's raincoat who stood reading the old banner with her head on one side. "Waiting for true love's kiss," she read aloud. "Who's it for, then?"

"Whoever pays the sixpence," said Ivy.

"No, I mean who's waiting." The woman tapped the glass. "Because she's been waiting a long time, and nobody's ever come up the pier to ask her."

Ivy looked at the lettering a long while. Then she mixed a little more gold, leaned in, and painted a small new word beneath TRUE, so faint you'd only find it if you were looking: ASK.