Called a “Demon” to Her Face, She Spent $70K to Become Who She’s Always Been
She walks into a room and people stop. Some point. Some stare in silence. Some walk straight up to her and say they hate what they see.
Kierstyn Milligan, 26, who goes by Orylan online, has spent an estimated $70,000 transforming her body since she got her first tattoo at age 14. The result: nearly every inch of her skin covered in ink, surgically tattooed eyeballs, a tongue split in two, fang-shaped dental veneers, and a heart-shaped implant embedded beneath the skin of her hand.
She doesn’t apologize for any of it.
“Most people will say I should have never changed myself,” Orylan told Need To Know. “But beauty is subjective, and I believe the way I look now is the beauty I’ve always wanted to achieve.”

From Las Vegas to Viral: How a Teen’s First Tattoo Became a Decade of Transformation
Orylan’s journey didn’t begin with a grand plan. She started with a small tattoo at 14 — a single act of self-expression — and kept going. By her mid-twenties, she had become one of the most recognizable figures in the body modification community online, amassing more than 143,000 followers on Instagram.
Orylan describes her approach to modification as deliberately spontaneous. She doesn’t map out future changes in advance — instead, she evaluates how she feels each day and decides from there. She’s already considering additional facial tattoos and even the possibility of tattooing her tongue.

Her most dramatic modifications aren’t just visually striking. They carry real medical weight.

The Procedure Doctors Are Calling Irreversible
Orylan’s tattooed eyeballs — a procedure known medically as scleral tattooing — place her in a small but growing group of body modification enthusiasts who have taken one of the most medically contested risks in the field.
The American Academy of Ophthalmology has been direct: the sclera of the eye is so thin that even tiny tattoo needles can penetrate the surface, causing permanent and painful blindness, according to Dr. John Hovanesian, an AAO clinical spokesperson and surgeon at Harvard Eye Associates.

The known risks, per the AAO, include decreased vision or complete blindness, retinal detachment, inflammation of the eye, and in worst-case scenarios, surgical removal of the eye itself.

The procedure has already been outlawed in Nebraska, Oklahoma, Indiana, and the Canadian province of Ontario. Several other states have considered similar bans.

rylan has not publicly disclosed any complications from her eyeball tattoos. But she knows the scrutiny her appearance brings — and she’s learned to meet it head-on.

“They Love to Say I Look Like a Demon”
The backlash Orylan faces isn’t just online comments. It happens in person, in public, without warning.
“When some people see my eyes they stare and point and say nothing,” she said. “Others give me ugly looks, and some will straight up get in my face and say they hate it.”

Online, the attacks follow predictable patterns. Trolls tell her she “looks like a demon,” that she was prettier before, or that her modifications must signal a troubled childhood.

She shrugs off all of it.
“I am much more myself in the skin I am in today,” she said.
Her tongue split — which cost just $700 and was performed using lidocaine anesthesia — has even changed the way she experiences food. After the procedure healed, she experimented with tasting two drinks at the same time. Coke and Sprite were the first combination she tried. She said she was genuinely confused by the flavor result.

Why This Matters Beyond the Shock Value
Orylan’s story lands at the center of a debate that’s only growing in America: where does personal freedom end and public concern begin?
The body modification community has expanded dramatically in the social media era. Influencers documenting extreme transformations reach millions of followers — many of them teenagers — and normalize procedures that carry serious, documented medical risks. Scleral tattooing isn’t theoretical in its dangers. Documented cases have resulted in emergency surgeries, vision loss, and in at least one case reported by the AAO, the surgical removal of an eye.
That tension — between an individual’s absolute right to transform her own body and the very real possibility of irreversible harm — is what makes Orylan’s story more than a curiosity scroll.
For her part, she has one message for anyone watching and considering a similar path:
“Do it out of love, do it out of the fact that it will make you happy. We should only do things that bring us joy — nothing but love and happiness.”

Whether the medical establishment agrees with her methods or not, Orylan isn’t changing course.