#Body Modificiation

[life-globe-blog]

A Kayan Lahwi (Padaung) woman who has removed her brass neck coils in in Pan Pet region, Kayah, Myanmar. Women of Burma who elongate their necks using brass neck rings to make themselves look like dragons and protect themselves against rape Credit: Eric Baccega/MediaDrum

[newzzhub]

Meet The Man With A World Record For Most Body Modifications Rolf Buchholz has greater than 516 physique modifications. A man from Germany has set a Guinness World Record for essentially the most variety of physique modifications.

[miscmeanderings]

---Meet cute---

When you come back from Thanksgiving, there’s a new guy hanging around with the fratboys who still nominally live in the last three rooms at the end of the corridor while they’re still waiting to grow out of being freshman and be allowed to live in the House like normal people.

In and of itself, there’s nothing wrong with this. The frat boys, despite their rowdy ways and dress sense which make them look like a cliche of Greek life are actually a pretty decent bunch who welcome new students into their midst like a pack of golden retrievers. (Read: readily, warmly, and sometimes with barking and twerking in absence of tails.)

Problem the first: the boys introduce the new guy as “Frankenstein”. You’ve met Victor Frankenstein and the tall, broad, new addition to the floor is definitely not the stooped, sallow boy you’re familiar with. You’re a little face-blind sometimes but you’re also pretty sure that a week isn’t enough time to get a glow-up which includes gaining about seven inches in height.

Problem the second: while you’re being introduced to “call-me-Frank” for the first time, the harsh fluorescent lights in the laundry room make it obvious that the stitches you initially thought were punk tattoos around his wrist, neck, and ring finger are insanely three-dimensional. You will later blame your next action on your brother’s best friend, who has drummed it into you that all people with tattoos love talking about them.

“Nice to meet you Frank. That’s a really cool tattoo. Do you know Victor? You guys have the same last name.”

And then you reach out and gently poke the the circle of stitches around the ring finger in the large hand you’re shaking. They are definitely stitches.

This is the point where things could still have been saved. Out-of-town-cousin-into-body-modificiation. Unfortunate-accident-with-a-rogue-tree-clipper-and-actually-Frankenstein-is-common-where-I-come-frome. Look-free-tacos-change-the-subject!

Unfortunately what the particular fratbro accompanying Frank has in warmth and friendliness, he lacks in chill.

“OH SHIT. LOOK YOU CANNOT TELL ANYONE. FRANK’S A SCIENCE EXPERIMENT.”

You blink. Frank blinks and his grip tightens slightly. You are suddenly very aware that he is much larger than you and that a laundry room is a surprisingly practical place to commit a murder, especially in the afternoon when everyone is at class. You make a mental note to never try to avoid laundry rush hour again.

Then the grip eases and Frank sighs.

“Jeff, if it’s a secret, perhaps don’t shout it.”

“Ah... my bad...”

Frank turns back to you and suggests continuing this conversation in a less echo-y chamber with a distressing lack of comfortable seating. You suggest the student lounge where things should be reasonably discrete so long as nobody starts shouting.

Nursing canned drinks and seated in a corner of the lounge where nobody can easily eavesdrop, Frank basically explains... well that he’s an abomination of nature and a walking fuck-you to all known science. Jeff takes issue with this description and the conversation almost derails as he starts to insist that every human has intrinsic value and none of us can help how we’re made.

In Frank’s case, this last line is literally true.

It turns out that good ol’ Victor of sallow complexion, poor posture, and frankly a rather elitist and antisocial demeanour may also be a bloody genius. (Or very, very lucky.) Somehow, in the privacy of his dorm room, he had managed to create life. Not in the old fashioned-way of knocking bits with someone of complementary sexual apparatus. He’d instead chosen a more hands-on approach of stitching together chunks of flesh from a variety of sources, and somehow imbuing them with life and sentience. The result was Frank.

You briefly consider asking where the flesh came from, and if it’s all human. The ethics involved in a sentient chimera would be fascinating. But that seems a bit rude for an introductory conversation so you shelve the idea. Instead you gently point out that this is a rather fantastic story and while you like to keep an open mind, Jeff does also have something of a reputation as a practical joker. (Admittedly, Jeff’s practical jokes usually run more in the line of adding hair dye to shampoo bottles of his frat brothers but it seems politer than straight up demanding proof.)

So the boys show you Frank/Victor’s room. The place looks fairly normal aside from the lack of a roommate; how did Victor score that win in the student housing sweepstakes. But then they lift the dust cover over the spare bed and holy shit that is a lot of lab equipment and notebooks. Frank picks up the top-most one and opens it around midway. It’s filled with weirdly neat writing and chunks of it have been highlighted.

“You’re welcome to read these. Short of replicating the procedure, or allowing an invasive examination of myself, they are the closest thing we possess to proof. Jeff’s brother, Gavin has already gone through them and marked the relevant sections. Like yourself, he was somewhat sceptical of my claims. As you have already noticed, I also exhibit several physical abnormalities. It is less noticeable on my face and hands, but I am very much the sum of multiple parts.”

And here, in the privacy of the dorm room, Frank toe’d off a sneaker, and rolled back his jeans and sock. The same ring of stitches ran around his ankle. Below the line, his foot was a ruddy tan not dissimilar to his hands. Above the line, the skin was the deep brown of coffee with a drop of milk.

“Oh shit shorts are out. Summer’s gonna be a bitch.”

It’s not the most eloquent thing you could have said but Jeff’s face lights up and Frank smiles wryly. It feels like you’ve passed a test.

---Paperwork---

It turns out that the fratboys have been taking Frank to class with them.

This is not hard as their classes are still largely lectures, and the professors have no inkling of which names match which faces. It’s perhaps made even easier by the fact that Frank is flat-out impersonating Victor who shares a surprising number of classes with at least one of the fratbros, so there’s always someone he walks in with who swears he’s meant to be there.

(“Wha- yeah this is Frank! Short for Frankenstein? He’s been in this class since week one prof. Hahaha yeah, usually slouched at the back. He IS tall.”)

With the exception of Jeff (who you’re beginning to wonder if you should have a little chat with about the importance of selecting classes and a major), the fratbros are planning to specialise in an interesting range of hard sciences, engineering, and philosophy. This eclectic mix seems to overlap with the courses Victor signed up for. Nobody is entirely sure what Victor’s major was even though he’s in his third year, or why he was taking so many level 100 and 200 courses. But it works out so nobody questions it. One of the TAs for a tutorial class raises an eyebrow when she’s taking roll call the first class after Thanksgiving but comments not further. She’s not paid enough to care about students possibly swapping places and call-me-Frank is a much more constructive addition to the class than she remembers Victor being so... fuck it.

(Almost as a rule, the professors are also weirdly charmed by Frank, but maybe that’s just because he talks like a text-book or an old person. You’ve asked Gavin about this since he’s the only one aside from Frank who’s bothered to slog through all of Victor’s notes. Gavin has no answers. Victor’s notes are... haphazard at best and distressingly silent on the origins of Frank’s component parts. You still aren’t comfortable raising it with Frank.)

The problem comes two weeks after thanksgiving when the first assignments come due.

“Frank needs to submit his mid-term paper for chem but we’re locked out of Victor’s email. Can you like... hack it?”

You consider explaining to Jeff that just because you’re taking Computing 101 doesn’t make you a hacker, although it is actually a skillset you’d like to acquire and you thought computing class would be a good way to ease in but so far it’s a lot more complicated than you thought and you’re becoming fairly sure this is NOT the thing you should major in because sadly interest does not always breed aptitude and you’re doing heck of a lot better in your writing class than computing. Though there’s something to be said about acquiring technical skills which is also quite attractive as a concept at least. Also, a lot of “hacking” turns out to involve guessing how people think and preying on psychology rather than actual technical prowess and - you realise you’ve been staring at Jeff with your mouth slightly open for about twenty seconds and he’s starting to look concerned.

“Uhm, I can’t.”

It’s honestly like kicking a puppy. Well a puppy and... maybe a Saint Bernard? Because Frank is standing behind Jeff holding a laptop and looking faintly worried and disappointed. You didn’t adopt Frank the way the fratboy pack did. But knowing The Secret makes you feel vaguely responsible. Also he and Jeff really do look weirdly pathetic.

That’s probably why you offer to hook them up with your friend from the administration office who’ll update Victor’s student ID if you spin some kind of plausible reason. (“Terrible accident right after matriculation and reconstructive surgery. Very sad. He’s trying to get used to how he looks now and seeing his old face staring at him every time he uses his card is just... painful. Can we just replace the picture?”)

And you know a guy working in campus tech support who’s just lazy enough to reset a password without additional checks on pesky things like security questions if you present him with a student ID.

While you’re at it, you help Frank check on the ol’ school fees status and there’s some happy news there because Victor’s paid up in full for the rest of the school year. Which is weird because usually the school only bills at the start of semester when course sign-ups are in but nobody’s about to look this gift horse in the mouth.

And just like that, “Victor” Frankenstein starts to turn from a languishing aimless third-year to a straight-A’s student. Turns out Frank is as smart as he sounds - possibly smarter - and the professors love him even more after the mid-term assignment submissions.

In your free moments, you wonder what’s happened to Victor and how long this charade can last. As far as the fratbros know, he disappeared the same night they found Frank, and hasn’t been seen since. Nobody misses Victor, but does that make it okay for Frank to just... slide into his life? You try not to think about how much larger and stronger than Victor Frank is, or how the fact of his creation means that somewhere on campus there is some means of acquiring, moving, and disposing of human body parts unnoticed.

The Hollywood creation of "Castle Frankenstein" as the place where Victor creates the Creature is really a shame, as it prevents the wider public from knowing the hilarity of the fact that Victor made his fucked up homunculus in his student housing at the college in Ingolstadt. Imagine you're trying to get your bachelor's degree and the chem major down the hall has created a crime against god in his fucking dorm room AND THEN HE LEAVES IT THERE. The creature has to make his own damn way off campus somehow!!!

[tulsitea-blog]

mmmm goob morning im just thinkin about how im gonna preemptively kill myself as soon as it becomes unbearably hot outside and the water starts to swallow major coast cities. im not even #suicide ideation al anymore it's just a self preservation thought cause i already have a lot of issues as long as i get to hang out a lot w/ my friends before the earth dies i'll be good and imma leave of my own accord and leave my wonderful physical form to rot somewhere nice. which also means i want to pursue many more forms of body modificiation and i used to have a very intense fear of natural disasters and i realize this is just a manifestation / futher iteration of that same fear. but it is also real that our planet is dying and i am a scared and i hate contributing to it but sadly it is still deteriorating anyway and living in a way that is healthy for the planet is becoming more and more impossible. as soon as i get cancer or the earth "gets cancer", i am so the fuck outta here. completely. done w/ it. @ all my friends: don't worry but also please don't feel a need or want to make a suicide pact w/ me. these are my own paranoid thoughts. i don't want to die there are just certain circumstances i would not want to or be able to live under. my brain's metaphorical pressure would make me explode yaknow? i think we have like 20 years before the earth collapses, and we should all link up and love and live our best lives before then. i am a lot less depressed than i used to be and i am learning to enjoy life. i know know it is inevitable and i can't lead a sad and barren existence :( i am going to travel a lot and meet a lot of people and experience a lot of new things, i'm just thinking about my future, and it's going to be shorter and better than a miserable 90 year lifespan. my whole family history has lived that way and it's been awful to see it play out and to see everyone just get worse and worse and worse. i see too much on a day to day basis which is why i blog and talk so much and smoke so much weed and constantly seek other substances cause i am trying so. fucking. hard to block it out. i need constant sensory distraction. i am always dissociating for this reason as well. but the earth means a lot to me and i will help heal her in whatever little ways i can, but we are too deep for us to be able to lead a comfortable existence past the next few decades. i am excited to see how it plays out and then relieved to put an end to my own life. i love you all so much i am still here we can still talk LIFE ISN'T POINTLESS i am just having a Manifesto Moment

[crippledaydreams]

[gamemakerm]

I'm still thinking about getting magnetic implants but now I'm wondering if there are other body mods that fall along similar lines

aside from RFID tags I haven't found much though, do you guys know about anything of the sort?

[crippledaydreams]

[ohhfucktheresclowns]

[officialamericanmary]

AMERICAN MARY PUTS HER VICTIMS UNDER THE KNIFE...