Brett+MacMullen

Post 10 Gather 'round kids for the last session. The last chapter is called 24. A man is asking Fran for a brain transplant. Apparently his niece just inherited 80% of a massive family fortune. Her uncle wants more of it of course. Seems he has some debts to pay off. They both get into a car accident, however, and the uncle's body is severely damaged to the point of uselessness. So, in order to save both their lives, Fran [|puts his brain into his niece's stuffed bear and hardwires it into her spinal cord]. His niece is still in a coma, so he gets control over her body and her inheritance. But he soon realizes that he can't really do anything with it without blowing his cover. During this, all the other relatives, oblivious to the fact that he's in control, are hounding him for more of the inheritance. He soon realizes just how badly her life is. Eventually, his niece wakes up and they're now sharing the body. During a family reunion in which they're basically all scheming to get the inheritance, a terrorist blows himself up and severely injures a number of people. Sent back to Fran, she transplants the niece's brain into an already prepared clone body with no brain of its own that one of the relatives ordered. As for everyone else, including the uncle, [|Fran did the same thing as before and hooked them all up to the niece's old body.] So ends 24. Well, this is the last post I'll be making sadly. I had really been hoping to get through the entire series, but a number of other projects or, in the case of the majority of April, I was sick and really didn't feel like doing any work. I hope you've all enjoyed this and I hope I've introduced you to a new series you will enjoy reading. Goodbye and good luck on the exam everyone! Post 9 Today, the chapter featured is "Sea Monster". It starts out with a ship being attacked by an unidentified giant being. Fran is called in along with many other scientists to try and figure out what it is, where it came from and where it is going. It eventually reaches a (already evacuated) island and stands up. It is [|so big] that it actually shouldn't be able to stand. Seeing its "impossible" size, they realize that only Fran's creator could have made something so large. From some samples, it's discovered that it used to a human girl. A PREGNANT human girl. It eventually reaches the only remaining person on the island: [|her mother]. Both mother and daughter head out to an uninhabited island. As Fran pointed out, bones aren't able to support such weight. The dinosaurs had to downsize because of inefficiencies. This comes from the [|Square/Cube law.] Basically, things do not scale up evenly. Put another way, you couldn't simply make something bigger and expect it to still work. This is why the dinosaurs had to downsize. Their own massive size simply couldn't work effectively. Post 8 This time, the chapter I'll be reviewing is "Hold Me Tight". It deals with a mentally unstable high-school student who kills his girlfriend and had planned on killing himself. Fran happens upon him after the murder but while he's still alive. He tries to kill her but breaks down and confesses to regretting what he did. Fran, moved by this story about "True love" decides to save the girl (after she's already dead mind you, but that how good Fran is). However, her body is basically unable to be salvaged. So what does Fran do? [|Turn what's left into a head capable of living on its own.] Someone asked what the point of me presenting Franken Fran was. The answer is to show how a series can be both incredibly accurate and incredibly inaccurate or outright wrong at the same time. Do I REALLY need to explain why this WOULDN'T work on a living person, much less an already stone-cold dead CORPSE? *sigh* Anyway, the guy takes her back to his apartment and tries to take care of her, but since she lacks vocal cords he doesn't know what she wants. Fran "upgrades" her with Fingers for movement and some primitive vocal cords, like a dog or cat. However, that's how he starts treating, even putting her in a cage when he next visits Fran. He requests a larger body. Five days later, when waiting around, he discovers that she had been writing, even though she shouldn't have had enough brain left. She calls out to him ([|with her new body]), having remembered that he killed her, and promptly returns the favor. All's well that ends well. Post 7 Jellyfish, as you know, are one of kids of animals we were studying in class. Even though this is a "mandatory" post, I will still stick to my usual style. As it tuns out, Franken Fran has a chapter involving a species of jellyfish. Now we shall take a look at Chapter 41: Sea Specter. The chapter opens with a narration by Fran about a particular beach that has been closed off by the government because of "fast currents and very low temperatures" the locals (usually) know better than to swim there anyway. Whenever so idiotic kids decide to swim there anyway, their corpses wind up on the shore shortly after. After one of the victims turned out to be the son of an influential politician, Fran has been called in to hep figure out what's going on. Together with Veronica (her "younger sister") and Adorea (a young women saved by Fran's creator Madaraki and turned into an organ container), along with a nun from the Vatican sent to "exorcise" the beach, they eventually discover that the true cause of the deaths were a species of jellyfish. These particular ones are a subspecies of a recently discovered one of the north coast of Australia. They are incredibly small, fragile, and poses a neurotoxin that's up there with some of the deadliest in the world. However, what's //really// strange is that [|they appear to have human faces.] Fran, after extensive research, eventually thinks that, by some unholy coincidence, the jellyfish somehow were able to acquire information, memories, or whatever you want to call it, from their victims. Oh, and they also called a [|really] [|big] one. The chapter ends with the aforementioned nun "exorcising" the "demon". Yeah, there really isn't much to say. The species mentioned does actually exist, though their being able to "acquire" memories as shown here is obviously not true. The principal used for this is the theory that memories could possibly be transferred via electromagnetic waves. That is still a theory however. Sadly there isn't anything more to say, except the "exorcising" is hilarious.

Post 6 Well, after roughly 4 weekends of either projects or sickness kicking me around, I'm finally back. Due to the aforementioned delays, I no longer have enough time to cover all of Franken Fran unfortunately. From now on I'll simply due whichever chapters I feel are good. With that out of the way, let's move on to Chapter 3: Take to Pieces. It starts off with a severed leg being discovered by some police. This apparently being a repeating incident, they contact Fran to help them. They show her [|all of the body parts] recovered so far. But the strange thing is, the DNA tests of ALL of those parts have been identical. In other words, they all came from one person/thing. After taking all of the parts and [|connecting them] there appears to be a center mass missing. Fran also notes that they were cut off while the person was still alive. She gets one of her "pets" to track the smell to a house, where they discover [|this] lovely girl. To make a long story as short as possible, her specialized and un-specialized cells were "ordered" to grow in random places on her body. In other words, basically a [|Teratoma] taken to the absolute extreme. Fran manages to remove it, and the girl lives happily ever after. Further highlights include [|Fran experimenting] and [|the operation itself], which is pretty tame compared to some other ones. Elaborating on Teratomas, they normally contain bone, hair, teeth and sometimes contain brain, liver, and lung tissues, as well as half-formed legs, eyes and even hands. Recent reports also suggest they contain parasitic brains and, while this is a stretch, may even be partially sentient in the same way an animal is sentient. So when you go to sleep tonight, give thanks you weren't born a Teratoma! Post 5 And I'm back! I've decided to try and do one each Saturday and Sunday from now on. So expect one tomorrow as well! And since someone asked about Franken Fran, the point about this is to try and show just how much the series can pervert biology as well as YOUR reactions to it, which is what I'm most interested in. And with that, on to Chapter 2: Chrysalis. The chapter starts with and a girl talking and the girl complaining about how the guy called her out to the middle of nowhere just to confess. As she's walking away, she's hit by a truck. The guy runs away in a panic looking for help and stumbles across Fran's mansion. Turn's out the truck that hit the girl was a supplier of Fran's, so she decides to check on the girl. Fran's reluctant to help at first but she's convinced to save the girl as part of an experiment as well as the guy's devotion. She saves the girl's life, buuuuuuuuuuut, well, now she's [|an insect]. Obviously she doesn't take it well, but the guy's devotion eventually leads her to appreciate still being alive. He helps her adjust to her new body, and eventually, she's able to regenerate her old body in the same way caterpillar's change into butterflies. Overjoyed, the two thank Fran and leave. But Fran apparently neglected to mention that the girl would still go through some other insect like stages of life, eventually resulting in [|this] lovely scene. Oops. A bit of a dry chapter in terms of quantity. The only other really notable scene for [|gorn]/[|body horror] is [|the operation itself.] Don't worry though; the next will be the best yet!

Post 4 All right then. Here's the first post dedicated exclusively to Franken Fran! I've already read through the entire series so I know this is going to be fun, but for now I'll only do 1 chapter at a time. Let me know if you want more. All right first chapter: "Brains". Obviously introduces us to the characters and is somewhat long. It deals with a real jackass of a man who wants to clone his dead son on the pretense of being in mourning but really just wants a puppet to control. Apparently his father (the dead-guy's grand-father) left most of his inheritance to his grand-son, the client's son. So the client killed his own son out of anger. Fran offers her own services, since the guy came looking for her father, but he refuses. Despite being refused, Fran eventually goes along with it anyway. Under the impression that the client truly cared for his son, since that's what he told her, and unable to fully revive the son, she chooses a mid-point: [|link the son's brain to the father's.] Unfortunately for the father, the son is fully aware that he killed him. I love karma, don't you all? And we'll be seeing it a lot more as well. Other highlights of [|gorn]/[|body horror] include [|Fran's eyes popping out (and not for the first time)], [|Fran's body working independently of her head], [|the operation itself], and [| the result.] All this in the first chapter alone! And there are still 46 more to go not counting any that come out later. Oh this'll be so much fun! Also, please let me know your thoughts in the discussion.

Post 3 ...Or mabye not. Oh well. Apoptosis! It is programmed cell death that helps prevent over "population", so to speak, of cells. It is actually one of the key factors in preventing cancer. If the cell follows normal apoptosis it will die off naturally. But sometimes it dosen't happen and cancer can result from it. Cancer cells are the only cells not to be pre-programmed for death. Actually, this does remind me somewhat of Franken Fran! I have not read the actual chapter yet, but I do remember hearing about it. An evil old lady hires Fran to give her eternal life and then tries to kill her to get out of paying. But Fran's method, while giving her eternal life, was incomplete. It basically consisted of changing all the cells of the woman's body into the one type of cell not programmed to die; cancer cells! So the woman was forever trapped in a never ending blob of cancer cells. All while still alive and concious of course. So apoptosis is critical to still living, otherwise you'll end up like [|this.]

Post 2 Ah, Franken Fran. Your ability to use [|Body Horror] is second to none. Oh hi classmates. This wiki will roughly be used to summarize my feelings about Franken Fran, a sennin manga about a girl named Fran, created by a Doctor who had incredible surgery skills in the same way as the classic Frankenstein monster. Fran has skills on par with her creator's and is "programmed", so to speak, to never take a life or allow one to be lost. I'll take you on an escapade of Body Horror, Nausea Fuel and images that will never let you sleep soundly again. This is going to be such fun! Tune in next time for a look at early chapters in the series and more than enough [|High Octane Nightmare Fuel] for the rest of the school year. And that's just the first post! Oh, we'll have such fun! Post 1 In response to the article about Anton van Leeuwenhoek, I believe that he should be partially credited for the creation of the microscope. While he didn't create the first one period, he did create the first real "modern" one. While still primitive compared to ours, his did manage to magnify images up to 200x instead of the 40x or 50x that all others of his time managed. Anton van Leeuwenhoek, in addition to the above mentioned microscope, also discovered bacteria, sperm and blood cells, and many other microscopic organics that helped leapfrog the development of biology forward. The reason his microscopes, which lead to the aforementioned discoveries, were so much better than his peers was because he crafted the lens himself. Because he was so skilled at grinding lenses, his microscopes were much more powerful even though they only had one lens.

Citation: Ford, B.J. 1991. The Leeuwenhoek Legacy. Biopress, Bristol, and Farrand Press, London. http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/leeuwenhoek.html