Someone asked me why I like monster makeup so much. What’s cool about zombies? What turns me on when a werewolf comes on screen? How come I get excited when someone’s face melts off, or there’s bone through the skin?

Because someone like me worked hard to make some of this stuff. Someone like me is back there, taking things we know and understand, and crafting them into something that wasn’t there before. Not even a little. We can construct faces, we can age someone, we can make it look like their own skin is melting off their bones. We’re magicians, we’re artists, we’re making it real. And really, how scary would a horror movie genre be without the monsters, gore, sensational images? Sure, there are thrillers, and they don’t rely on the “cheap tricks”… but even then, we’re always useful.

I’m a makeup artist as well as a SFX artist, so it’s no big deal to make a model look beautiful, or to hide the wrinkles in some guy’s face. No problem. But of course, it’s making the monster effects that really gets me hot. If there was more opportunity to have that kind of job, then I’d take it. For now, looks like I’ll be a piercer, which is awesome enough in its own right.

I don’t know what makes me this way. Maybe I saw Night of the Living Dead when I was little, maybe I had a tiny Jason plushie next to my pillow, maybe I thought that Amityville just looked so gosh darn nice to live in. One way or another, I am the way I am and that’s not going to change any time soon. If they couldn’t train it out of me at Crystal, it’s sticking for good. Besides, with such a pretty face, how could anyone guess that’s what I’m up to? That’s the flipside benefit to being a makeup artist: I can make my own face flawless, sweet, doll-like. Or I can look older, if I want to. Not such a big deal. In my henshin, I look like a little kid, though; can’t really help that. It’s funny… maybe I am that person inside, somewhere beneath the gore and adhesive fangs.

Maybe there’s no real reason for it. I honestly can’t say why I prefer this stuff, just that I do, I really do. People have tried and tried for years to dissuade me, but it’s not happening. While I would instantly adore anyone who could do a few magic tricks, that was also not a hobby that I could transfer into: my parents did try, thinking that if I liked weird and fantastical things maybe they could dissuade me from monster makeup by convincing me that card tricks were the best thing ever. Turns out I can’t shuffle to save my life. I do think that it’s cute, though. Magic tricks, not my inability to shuffle.

Whatever. They’re going to have to deal with me the way I am; sincerely not concerned any more. Now that I’m making it out of Crystal (finally), they can bite my shiny metal a**.