is it possible to get a tattoo to have colour, but, instead of vibrant string colours, be almost saturated i suppose you could say...like an old faded book, as appose to stand out bright colours? i have fairly light skin.

A good artist can do whatever you like pretty much.  I suggest taking your idea to an artsit and see what they say.

It's definitely possible with a good artist. It'd just be a wash instead of using the ink in it's normal saturated from, I'd imagine. I have a couple pieces with color washes and it's nice and subtle, imo.

interesting, do you have pictures of your colour wash tattoos i could see? and what exactly are they i dont quite understand?

A wash is just diluted tattoo ink. If you've seen "shaded" black and grey tattoos, the grey part is generally a wash, so you can imagine the same general effect can be achieved with color ink. I'm hesitant to post photos of my stuff online nowadays due to folks thinking it's a-ok to copy someone else's work. I'm sure there's a slew of examples if you peruse around on BME, tho.

 The only wash I have experience is grey wash... And it takes for-fucking-ever to do. So, I'll just throw out the forewarning that it takes timeee, just like yellows, etc.

They just put a little bit of ink in a cap and fill the rest of it with water...