#I know these kinds of fossils are super common

[jabbers-wild-world]

;; Guys! Look what I found today!! Fossils!!! My inner child who dreamed of paleontology is screaming right now!

There’s a ton of shells, and the big rounded oval spot is a clam!!

[fossilprep]

I have a question: how do you get taught to do fossil preparation? Do you start practicing on plain rocks just to learn how the tools work, or something else? I found one of my old plaster egg things and just started wondering.

Also, this blog is super cool I love hearing about how it works.

Some of the very best preparators I know claim to have started with fossils they collected on their own, and it was the same way with me. We'd look up ways to get our fossils out of the rock and would use dental picks and other easily available tools, breaking fossils in the process and making lots of mistakes, so that when we finally got the opportunity to volunteer at a museum we knew a few things.

Every institution is different in how it teaches people how to prepare fossils. The most common practice is to assign a volunteer a fossil and a manual tool of some kind to be used under a microscope. Usually the first tools are dental picks because they're made of stainless steel which doesn't tend to scratch fossils as easily as the tungsten carbide in pin vises. Later on, carbide tools like pin vises and airscribes will be introduced.

I'm happy to educate people on what we do behind the scenes since it doesn't get as much attention as research.

[togglesbloggle]

The Master Speed

There’s a neat feature in the natural sciences that I think about sometimes, one of those times when a stark binary emerges from a smooth gradient.  In hydrodynamics, bodies of water can be divided into two classes: subcritical, and supercritical.

It’s caused by a gee-whiz feature of water, which is that under earthlike conditions (that is, holding gravity constant and such), forces propagate through deep water at about the same speed no matter what.  Toss a rock in a still pond, watch the ripples expand outwards as the billiard balls of water molecules bounce and bounce against one another- that’s the speed that force, and of information carried therein, is propagated in water.  You’ll note it’s rather slow, actually.

(Though it’s a common mistake to make, keep in mind that ripples do not represent the outward motion of water molecules themselves- water isn’t zooming outwards in a circle away from our stone.  Ripples are lines of disorder and force moving through the medium of water, like sound waves in air or the compressed section of a slinky.)

Now let’s complicate the picture slightly.  Instead of a still pond, let’s imagine that we’re now in a slowly moving brook.  You toss in your stone, and the ripples spread around it in a circle as before.  Only this time, the center of that circle is moving downstream at a speed set by the flow velocity of the brook.  Relative to where you’re standing on the bank, the ripple of force is now moving upstream slower than it would otherwise, and the downstream front is moving faster.

Now speed up the brook a little more.  No, more than that.  Real fast now.

Do you see what happens?  The water itself is now going faster than the ripples!  In other words, ripples cannot travel upstream at all, they’re only ever moving downhill.  This thing is going to behave in fundamentally different ways.  

In a slower (subcritical) river, water flows in a certain way around rocks and other heavy obstructions- the water can ‘know’ about the irregularities before they happen, because they send ripples upstream, and the state of flow reflects that as it bends fairly smoothly around the thing.  Pay attention next time you see some rapids, and notice how the choppy water actually starts slightly before the first rocks.  

But in a really fast (supercritical) flow, either in a really fast river or just in localized high-speed zones like waterfalls, information about the environment simply does not propagate upstream at all, so the water just slams into obstructions with no warning.  These things splash differently, erode banks differently, and flow differently- it’s an entirely different species.  It’s super obvious which one you’re looking at, even just in the fossil record when the water itself is long since gone.

(This picture contains a narrow band of supercritical flow, right along the shelf in the middle at the little waterfall.  The choppy region downstream and the smooth region upstream are both subcritical; you can see ripples bouncing every which way.  Notice how that band ‘insulates’ the smooth upstream zone from the choppy waves below. No matter how rough the whitewater waves get, they never propagate up the waterfall.)

By smoothly changing the conditions of our little brook, we discovered a weird binary state encoded in the ratio of two values: the speed of the medium, and the speed of the force within it.  It really matters which of these is bigger, and creates a radically different environment.  As we smoothly move one of these values past the other, the continuous begets the discrete.

This happens a lot in nature, actually, but this is a helpful case study because it’s ultimately pretty simple and pretty accessible.  You can replicate this in your sink, even.  But it keeps coming in handy for me as a metaphor, in all kinds of weird situations.  It is not, really, a lesson in wider phenomena, it doesn’t provide new information that you don’t already have.  But it’s a framework that ends up being really handy, a kind of alphabet that helps me articulate my thoughts.  I present it here for your perusal.

One story here is just that a spectrum does not imply continuity.  Small, continuous change can cause systems to abruptly and radically leap from one state to another.  I don’t mean this in a shallow political way or anything like that- there are a few lessons here about climate change and such, but I don’t really mean it in that narrow of a sense.  It’s more philosophical than that, about the origins, utility, and reality of the distinctions we make.  Sit with it a while, if you're so inclined, and maybe you’ll find it as rewarding as I did.  Maybe not, brains are weird.

But there’s another analogy lurking here, one that’s harder to articulate.  Rivers, of course, have been a metaphor for time since… well, since forever.  In a moving river, no given particle actually moves upstream, but information does.  A few paragraphs back, I talked about the river ‘knowing’ what was coming, right?  And just as rivers send information upstream, the consistency and ordered nature of the cosmos allows the future to affect the present, at least to some extent.  This is the whole trick that makes brains work (and in a subtler way, DNA too); brains are the eddies and whorls in the flow of time where events downstream propagate upwards, where the flow of atoms in the present is dictated by our predictions, by our anticipations of future events and by the information that the present carries about what has not yet occurred.

In a real river, a relatively simple mechanical system, there’s only a modest amount of information moving upstream in time.  Add in natural selection, you get a bit more, add in intelligence, you get a LOT more.  In our wider supra-fluvial reality, the development and propagation of these brains has a lot to do with whether time itself is, in a sense ‘subcritical’ or ‘supercritical’, whether the present is in the shadow of the future or whether it is merely itself.  And, in turn, it becomes a different type of environment- a biosphere, an Anthropocene, a living world.  It’s a fascinating way to think about myself.

[queenlucythevaliant]

🧬🦕

Is it cool if I get a little personal? Let me tell you about one of the coolest things I've ever gotten to do: two summers ago, I got to see the Archaeopteryx fossil at the Wyoming Dinosaur Center, which is also the only specimen on display in North America.

Trust me when I say that the stock clip art that I chose to obscure myself is 100% representative of the face I'm making here. If anything, the smile isn't big or goofy enough.

Here's a close-up and a diagram to show up-close what I'm actually looking at. Note the impressions of wing and tail plumage!

Diagram source

You've probably at least heard of Archaeopteryx: it's a transitional genus dating to the late Jurassic and the earliest example of what we could consider a "bird" which retains many ancestral "reptilian/dinosaur" characteristics.

Now, "bird" and "reptile" are kind of arbitrary words here because reptiles are a paraphyletic group. DNA tree-building models and sequence alignment evidence demonstrate that there's simply no way to define "reptiles" which does not also include birds; the definition of a "reptile" is a sauropsid that is not a bird. Thus, we know that all birds have a reptilian common ancestor because they arose as a branch within the sauropsid clade. Archaeopteryx is an ancient sauropsid with both avian and reptilian features; this is what we mean when we call it a transitional genus. 

But why did this transitional fossil make me smile so big that my cheeks went numb? There are several reasons, I think:

Despite its transitional characteristics, most scientists consider Archaeopteryx the first bird in the fossil record. It was also the first direct evidence that birds evolved from reptilians (the first Archaeopteryx specimen was discovered just three years after On the Origin of Species was published). Just on a basic, fundamental level, this genus is of immense scientific and historical importance and standing next to it felt like meeting a celebrity.

The particular specimen that I got to see was super cool! Unlike most Archaeopteryx fossils, which tend to be preserved on their sides, this one is preserved on its stomach with its head in three-quarter view. Thus, it's the only specimen in which the palate bones are clearly visible, and it's tetraradiate (as in non-avian theropods) rather than triradiate (as in other avians.) The palate is one of the most important features in terms of saying, "yeah, we consider this a modern bird."

Its feet are also really well-preserved! The specimen I saw clearly demonstrates that Archaeopteryx didn't have a reversed toe, but does have a hyperextendable second toe. This means that unlike modern birds, it probably had limited ability to perch; instead, it had tearing claws like a dinosaur. 

But even in contrast with other important transitional fossils - say, the Archeoceti of Wadi al Hitan in Egypt, which are amphibious ancestors of modern whales - Archaeopteryx is something special. There's a certain romance to the idea of the first bird: feathers that actually enable something like flight! (Like Buzz Lightyear, Archaeopteryxes' wings were probably used for "falling with style.") But still, there's beauty in Archeopteryx that we don’t see in other transitional fossils. In his poem "The Archeopteryx's Song," Edwin Morgan captures this glory far better than I ever could:

I am only half out of this rock of scales.

What good is armour when you want to fly?

My tail is like a stony pedestal

and not a rudder. If I sit back on it

I sniff winds, clouds, rains, fogs where

I'd be, where I'd be flying, be flying high.

Dinosaurs are spicks and

all I see when I look back

is tardy turdy bonehead swamps

whose scruples are dumb tons.

Damnable plates and plaques

can't even keep out ticks.

They think when they make the ground thunder

as they lumber for a horn-lock or a rut

that someone is afraid, that everyone is afraid,

but no one is afraid. The lords of creation

are in my mate's next egg's next egg's next egg,

stegosaur. It's feathers I need, more feathers

for the life to come. And these iron teeth

I want away, and a smooth beak

to cut the air. And these claws

on my wings, what use are they

except to drag me down, do you imagine

I am ever going to crawl again?

When I first left the crag

and flapped low and heavy over the ravine

I saw past present and future

like a dying tyrannosaur

and skimmed it with a hiss.

I will teach my sons and daughters to live

on mist and fire and fly to the stars.

And like, that’s it, right? Obviously no Archaeopteryx could possibly have any concept of bird or dinosaur. No fifteen million year-old creature could have dreamed eagles or pigeons or penguins. But God did. 

God knew from eternity that a creature called Archaeopteryx would exist. He knew that it would have a dinosaur’s sharp teeth and bony tail and yet wings and feathers to glide with. He alone could imagine a world in which creatures sharing a close relative with Archaeopteryx would have more feathers for the life to come; that the lords of the skies would be in the next egg’s next egg’s next egg.

He knew that Jesus would tell his disciples to look at birds when they were worried; that Gerard Manley Hopkins would write a poem dedicated “To Christ our Lord” in which he extolled “My heart in hiding/ Stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!” God knew that the albatross, so like and yet unlike Archaeopteryx, would live its life on the wing, flying over oceans ten thousand miles at a time, and that Samuel Taylor Coleridge (a devout Christian) would write a poem in which an albatross was Christlike, and that C.S. Lewis would write a book in which an albatross was Jesus and whispered courage to a little girl in the dark. God knew that one day, in the summer of 2021, I would stand beside this fossilized evidence that Archaeopteryx really lived, staring and squinting to see all its features, grinning like an idiot and thinking, “Do you imagine I am ever going to crawl again?” 

[pqrachel]

Lore Dump Questions

It's been a bit since I've done something like this, but I found a giant list of character design questions here. And so I'm gonna pick some of my OCs and generate a couple random numbers from 1-253 for each of them and and then just ramble and explore the characters a bit.

So yeah just an insanely long rambly bit of character exploration below the cut...

---

So the first character I'm doing this for will be Taylor Che. He's one of my main 4 Blanksford cast and I've been trying to figure out some stuff regarding where I'm taking his story.

36. Do you have any siblings? What are/were they like? So I kind of haven't thought about Taylor's family like at all. Gabby has one sister, Aeri and Madi have no siblings, but Taylor I just don't know. So I guess right now I'm making the decision that he's got two brothers. I know Taylor figured out he's genderfluid around 15 / 16 years old in upper school. I've got a story in progress about him figuring that out and there's tension between him and his first boyfriend. And I think him having to figure that out mostly on his own makes a lot of sense. Maybe one brother is older and already moved out and doing his own thing, and the other is younger and not super able to help him think about that kind of thing. I think his family would be respectful but not like too helpful if that makes sense. I don't want to decide too much on a whim, but that seems like a decent starting point for when I want to come back to his family later.

158. What is your favorite animal? Why? I haven't done a lot of ecological set-up, but Taylor's born in Blanksford which is like a pretty dense city. I know Gabby's into birds, Aeri's into dinos (dino fossils aren't nearly as common due to the ecology of Solthra, but this is a question about Taylor), so I don't know what Taylor would be into. Maybe something aquatic but the only aquarium in Origia is in D-City, so that might be better for Madi since she's born in D-City and could have had some family trips their with her parents before they got divorced when she was 12. So I guess for Taylor I could do like city cats that'd be cool and I don't have any actual pets either so maybe giving Taylor a pet cat could be cool. I could even make Jaspurr from my Colostle story be Taylor's cat. Because I've done story crossovers a bunch and I really like Jaspurr and I haven't touched my Colostle series in a while and it'd be a shame to not use my lil cat design, so that seems like it could be a lot of fun.

---

Okay new character, let's keep with the Blanksford characters I'm focusing on in my latest wips, so Artemis. I'm still trying to place her fully in the story. She's a vigilante that the majority of the population hates, and Taylor's coming around to seeing her side of things, and it's creating some tension that makes me want to flesh out her character a bit more so let's see how this goes.

15. What does your voice sound like? This is a question I don't think about too much. Like even when watching shows / video games I just don't think about a character's voice that much. The only character of mine I have a voice actor head-canon for is Aeri who I'd want played by Ashly Burch because Life is Strange brain go brrrr. But for Artemis I don't know. I spent a bit looking for voice actors who I'd like to see but that's so far out of my wheel-house. Like I'd want her voice to give villainous vibes. Maybe the VA who played Sylvie *checks notes* Sophia Di Martino. ...but after rewatching some clips that's not really right either, but Tom Hiddleston could be a fun voice for Taylor. I don't know...

49. If you died or went missing, who would miss you? Damn straight at her insecurities. But she's got no remaining family until she got her powers no serious friends. And afterwards Blank had to be coerced to even help and doesn't really like her that much even though they sort of work together. There's something going on with her and Taylor but it's complicated. Definitely in the future, I think Taylor would miss her, but where the story's at in my head, that a bit ambiguous on his feelings.

---

OK next character, let's do a big jump out of Blanksford and to Mystic Mysteries with Dawn Ronik. Her story is all over the place so this good be interesting.

66. As a child, what kinds of personality traits did you display? So I've got bits of story from Dawn's past and all the way up to her growing up. And in her past right around the time she fell into the portal to the mystic plane, she wasn't too brave. But she was super curious part of the reason she explored enough to find the portal even at such a young age.

96. Who would be the one person you’d never tell your fear? This is a fun question because Dawn's actually pretty solitary after she returns to the mortal plane leaving behind Tehl. She has a kind of short relationship with Ashly Smith who is a character I've reworked to fit Dawn's story. And I think despite all she shared about her time in another plane living with an "aberration," she probably would have kept her fears a little more to herself, since it never served her to talk about it and since it was more of an abstract thought, it'd be much hard to share that with Tehl growing up having to make their own language to communicate, since they were two completely different species. (Although saying that now I realize I might have my timeline a little wrong but I think the sentiment and what it means for the story is still true.)

---

Another weird character, umm... how about Twii'Jay. She's a character so new I haven't even drawn her yet. But she's the ringmistress of a travelling circus called the Cirque Destinae.

20. Do you wear any jewelry? I think on-stage she'd be very flashy and would like have jewelry, but when she's not working it's a bit tedious and she'd prefer wearing less accessories and being comfy more than anything with her clothing and accessories.

33. Is there someone in your family you wish you were closer to? So Twii'Jay is actually demonic. Her grandparent is an incubus making her a quarter-demon or a half-elf with how I have that all working. She very much wants nothing to do with her parents and she doesn't have any siblings. So as far as blood family goes the answer is a strict no. But found family like the circus is something she's super devoted to and she loves all of her crew very much.

---

Okay one last character... let's go with Dee. She's the slime girl researcher I drew a bit ago, but I don't really have to much ideas for her other than being a way to explore the world by literally having her explore it. (Very similar to my initial concept for Dreya but she's now become a whole thing with the merfolk side of my Mystic Mysteries stories, so maybe Dee will last longer in me exploring...)

92. When and where were you the happiest? Like I said I don't have to much ready for this character, so going on-model. She'd be happiest making a new discovery about the world. She's pretty curious and at one point she's working with another character named Cass who's a gravity sorcerer and I think they'd be happy figuring stuff out. And since Dee was born under strange circumstances and doesn't remember / doesn't have a past. I think her getting to interact with someone and truly let loose thinking about a topic with someone would make her pretty happy.

175. What is your responsibility to the world? Why? Again, she's a researcher and that's something she chose to be and really believes in. While yes she finds lots of topics interesting. She's the only known slime-being, but she feel connected to the naglings and the misunderstand "false angels" as a whole, so she'd really like to be the one who shows humans the truth regarding the angels, and how misrepresented they are in the churches view of the angelic plane and its connection to the mortal plane.

---

Okay I lied this is fun, I'm gonna do another one. Let's bring it back to Blanksford and do this for Katie Moore, she's Gabby's sister and I've only recently introduced her when I did the Blanksford Pride comics in June. She's still a bit underdeveloped but that's what's gonna happen when I focus on developing so many OCs independent of a specific story and I'm just having fun fleshing out side characters. (Arthur, if you're reading this, and I mean this in the best way, but I totally blame you for my obsession with writing OCs, you've shown me how fun it is and I've taken it to be my own thing and it's just so great <3 lol)

108. Who or what, if anything, would you die for? (or go to extremes for?) My initial reaction was to say she'd go to extremes for Gabby, but that's the obvious answer. I think she's got her own friends that she's close to outside of Gabby's friend group (that I don't plan on writing), and even within the main friend group, I like thinking her and Madi have gotten close, and at some point down the line. Katie would defend Madi or go to extremes for her if she had to. She's closer to her parents than Gabby is so maybe them too (again I haven't written them at all so idk for sure).

159. What is your least favorite animal? Why? This felt like a fun last question to end on it'd be totally subjective but right now I'm imaging Gabby's digital pet bird Mango annoying Katie when they were growing up and now Katie doesn't like birds all that much. Probably not like a deep hatred but her go-to if asked this would probably be birds.

[peacefulwarriorep]

Word for the day

#Malthusianism

… a theory which, when applied to the Earth’s ecosystem and humans. Is quite frankly

#HORSESHIT

Carrying capacity could be WAY higher than common projections - just needs us to be decent and responsible human beings - (tall order BUT achievable.

The awakened youth (not to be confused with woke idiots) need to breed and do so responsibly. Don’t be hoodwinked into “sterilising”yourselves (or worse still your children) - leave that to the ignorant lab rats.

Just to be clear - Malthusianism is the mainstay “taken for granted” theory that underwrites many “Green” agendas which are being touted and hijacked by totalitarian global elites (financial ones at least).

The idea that we as humans MUST reduce our carbon emissions is obviously essential to a point. But only because we are DOING IT WRONG (life).

All fossil fuels should certainly be treated with care and we do need to reduce POLLUTION of our waters and air. BUT, reducing population growth (as is being surreptitiously pushed by WEF) can NOT be used as a way to validate the insane farming practices which we have been forced into by a capitalist culture.

Human migration DOES need some kind of cap in some areas. Growth of cities and towns need to be addressed responsibly and not arbitrarily through government guidelines.

Massive areas of wheat land and other monocultures ought go back to small holdings of much more productive intercrops and syntropic agroforestry.

Fecundity is something I remember well from my animal population dynamics at @newcastleuni - For example - in times of drought and food shortage, elephants need to travel further and have a larger interval between calving.

Another example of reduced fecundity would be “Medical Doctors” giving random children #pubertyblockers before their hormones have levelled out (apparently aged 28 - but don’t take my word for it. It is largely excepted by every single brain surgeon.. ever. )

Hormones are ANY chemical produced internally or introduced by injection OR by our naturally occurring and mutually beneficial - symbiotic MICROBES!) which affect mood and behaviour and thereby physiological activity which is intrinsically linked to the gut through the vagus nerve. Plants also provide many hormones to us. To trust injections or pills over nature is baffling to me personally.

It is very careless to play with medically administered hormones IMO. I am not trying to devalue any one whose mood or health has been helped with artificial hormones. But just know that THERE IS A NATUROPATHIC ALTERNATIVE to all of them.

I know many women who were duped into hormones by the medical industry and who are now dependent on them to manage their eggs.

(happy Easter by the way)

Birth control also fuels promiscuity (in case that wasn’t self evident). Everyone can decide what they want for themselves when they have sufficient KNOWLEDGE. When one’s kids get to decide for themselves is also up to us.

Many MANY hormones are produced by our microbiome. Maybe Gaia is spiking us with bacteria which (who) make us do irresponsible things?! It has been shown fairly convincingly that toxoplasmosis for example makes us take greater risks. Which might be why all the best footballers play better when they live with cats. That could also be because they are getting validation daily (albeit feline). Confidence is a super power.

Pretty hard to know for sure what our microbes are delivering in the way of “hormones” since we still only know the function of 20% of the diverse healthily nourished human microbiome.

Food production is ONLY LINEAR IF WE RELY ON FAKE FERTILISERS and quite frankly IDIOTIC monoculture practices.

Revolutionising our food production systems by REGRESSION could be one part of the solution - for example - regenerative zero till permaculture food forests which significantly INCREASE yield and build soils and need only water and sun.

It’s also called NATURE.

We need to work WITH nature NOT against it.

#EndMonoculture (not tomorrow obviously - but it has to be phased out)

Innovation and advanced tech can handle the “policing” (for want of a less authoritarian word) and monitoring of honesty in farmers so we do not get another band of liggers hijacking a “trend”. We can also grow more of our own. Micro greens under gro lamps especially.

Accountability and transparency are essential in all areas of life.

#NewWorldOrder

#Reset

#ARC vs #WEF

#ARC>WEF

#allianceforresponsiblecitizenship

Thank you Dr Jordan B Peterson for that word of the day #Malthusianism (taken from the first of his 3 part lecture on marriage - pictured) which opened the path for my morning #MindWorm

🕊️ peace

🤎 love

🙏🏻 compassion

[reddpenn]

Oh, right, I never posted these!  Here are the rocks I acquired at my last rock show!

This big sparkly girl with the bottle green, glassy appearance is vivianite, a rock which is just as fragile as it looks!  Vivianite has some really cool properties.  It begins as a colorless mineral, but as soon as it’s exposed to light, it undergoes a chemical reaction that turns it this blue-green color.  As long as it’s exposed to light, this chemical reaction will continue, and the crystals will turn darker and darker until they’re completely black.  Another cool thing about vivianite is that it exhibits pleochroism, meaning the crystals look more green or more blue depending on the angle you view them at.

This funky-shaped sparkly girl is a scepter quartz!  Scepter quartz occurs when a younger crystal begins growing on the tip of an older one, resulting in a big crystal perched atop a skinny one, like the jewel atop a scepter!  This scepter is a smoky amethyst with some really cool stuff going on inside.  My favorite detail is those red spots, which are caused by needle-like crystals of hematite growing inside the quartz!

This is the third meteorite to join my collection!  This piece fell to Earth about four to five thousand years ago in northern Argentina.  Its melted appearance is because the heat of entering Earth’s atmosphere actually caused it to melt!  Campo del Cielo meteorites are iron-nickel meteorites, made from a metal alloy called meteoric iron.  (Ok, so, not to go off on a tangent but meteoric iron is really cool stuff, historically.  See, iron doesn’t occur on planet Earth in its native, metallic form.  It’s always bound up in ores and has to be processed.  But native iron does occur in the vacuum of space, and sometimes that iron falls to Earth as meteors, so the only iron that Bronze Age people had access to before the advent of iron smelting was from meteors.  They made some really cool stuff with it.  Did you know that Tutankhamen was buried with a dagger made from meteoric iron?)

This fossil boy is a slab of turritella agate!  It comes from a fossil deposit in Wyoming called the Green River Formation.  Those white shapes are the fossilized shells of turritella sea snails encased in chert.  These shells were once buried at the bottom of an ancient ocean!  Because of the cool patterns their cross sections make, turritella slabs like this one are used by lapidary artists to cut cabochons for jewelry.

Speaking of cool agates, here’s a neat little fire agate!  This piece came from the southwestern United States.  That metallic, rainbow iridescence (or “fire”) is caused by alternating layers of goethite and limonite, which form as botryoidal bubbles encased in translucent chalcedony.  Fire agate is one of the coolest forms of agate, because it’s so incredibly rare!  The only place in the world where it’s found is an area from central Mexico up through California and Arizona, where it was formed during ancient volcanic activity.

Here’s another cool agate!  This is Aztec purple lace agate, which comes from Mexico.  I don’t think they’re mining it out anymore (actually, it hasn’t been mined for a long time), so this is pretty scarce stuff!  It doesn’t photograph well, so trust me when I say that this piece is much purpler in person.  Other than that, I don’t know much about it!

Also very purple and also from Mexico is this Coyamito agate!  Note the super cool hexagon shape.  Coyamito agate is known for its pseudomorph formations: it replaces other minerals and grows in their shape.  That’s rare in agate, but super common in the Coyamito agate deposit!  In this case, the agate was growing in the hollow left behind by a hexagonal crystal.

Here’s something I’ve been wanting to add to my collection for a long time!  This dignified boy is royal imperial jasper, possibly my absolute favorite kind of jasper. (And unlike most of the rocks the crystal healing crowd likes to slap the word “jasper” on, he’s actually a real jasper!)  We’re seeing in cross-section what’s known as an “egg” formation, the result of a jasper nodule which started small and then grew outward in uneven layers.  Changes in the environment during the formation of each layer resulted in all these different colors!  This piece is also from Mexico.

And finally (drumroll please), it’s time for opals!  As is tradition, I came home from the show with three brand new Ethiopian opals.  Here they are!

Opal number one!  Beautiful!  Subtle and refined!  10/10!

Opal number two!  Stunning!  A style all her own!  Her birthmarks really add warmth and color to the overall presentation.

Opal number three, the Big Girl.  Gorgeous!  Full of fireworks!  What a wonderful sparkly girl!

[is-the-primate-vid-cute]

i doubt you’d be able to answer this lol but i’m always sooo curious on how, yes every primate species is extremely different both in terms of biology and intelligence, but how WE are the only primates to evolve in such an odd way. everytime i see a chimp, gorilla, or any other super intelligent primate species I’m always like “huh. why didn’t they evolve to the point of making fires/cooking their own food/etc” lol. it just feels kinda lonely to be the only species that can properly interact passively and positively with other species but they can’t really do it with us without the negative of “well now they’re too used to humans and will always go to us for food/help/comfort/etc”

This is an interesting question! I am a big fan of primate evolution, and I love untangling how we got to this point as species of primates. Looking at the line of evolution that produced modern humans is fascinating because we really are the only species like this. Over the course of the last few million years there have been so many weird little things that just happened to work out for us, and this is a major reason why I always specify that our species is not the apex of evolution, but rather a weirdly specific offshoot of when we branched off from chimps and bonobos. For a long time scientists of different disciplines have been trying to figure out why humans are the way we are and so different from other apes. This has been a part of anthropology I particularly enjoy as in the pursuit of finding our ancient origin, the cultural values and biased ideas we have about humans have come through. You truly can’t separate the "soft” sciences from the “hard” sciences when the social sciences dictate how we go about scientific pursuits.

The two approaches to figuring out why we are the way we are is top down, which looks at modern humans and apes, what we have in common and different, and uses that information to hypothesize how we got to this point. The other is bottom up, which relies on our limited knowledge of now extinct apes and hominids. Neither approach is perfect, and we are still missing so much information! However, we do know a surprising amount. 

Possibly the most popular ‘missing link’ is Lucy, the austrolopith that lived over 3 million years ago in Africa’s fertile crescent. When looking for fossils of our ancient ancestors, researchers assumed they would be looking for an intelligent ape as intelligence is often thought of as the key defining characteristic of the human species. We literally named ourselves smart man-- homo sapiens. So in searching for an ape with a big skull to accommodate a larger brain, they found Lucy with her unremarkable cranium but extraordinary posture. Lucy walked upright! This was a game changer, as not only were we faced with this recalibration of our assumptions but we had to figure out why she was walking upright. What advantage did this give austrolopithicus?

When it comes to evolution, the rule of thumb is if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it. Horseshoe crabs are living proof that if something works for you as a species, you keep doing it, so what made us start walking upright and sticking with it? Despite the name, the fertile crescent was not in a state of abundance in Lucy’s time. Resources were scarce, and the predators were far too brutal for a humble austrolopith to compete with. Lucy’s kind needed an advantage to get by and thrive, and it turns out an upright posture is an evolutionary trade off. What we lost in speed and sturdiness, we gained in stamina. Being bipedal means our walk takes very little energy as each step lets gravity do most of the work. There is no energy consuming push off to get started, and once you’re walking you can keep a steady rhythm and keep going for ages! Austrolopithicus walked on two legs for hours and hours every day to cover the most ground possible to maximize forage finds. Not only that, but arms not supporting the body’s weight meant Lucy could carry her finds back to her friends. Thus, walking upright became the new origin of humanity. We can even guess that walking upright was the catalyst for increased social bonds as free arms = carrying food back and sharing. It is also thought that since developing more narrow hips to facilitate upright posture makes giving birth more difficult, austrolopiths relied on those social bonds to be taken care of during and after birth, unlike most species which prefer to give birth alone. 

I could go into (way way way) more detail on the subject, but basically humans started down the path of becoming human because of a series of weirdly effective specific adaptations that started with standing up. These changes happened extremely slowly, over millions of years to bring us to where we are today. As for other great apes, they didn’t follow in our footsteps because for them there was no real push. Orangutans, bonobos, chimpanzees, and gorillas are all great at what they do! While things may look different in another 5 million years, for now I can confidently say that while other apes may prefer our cooked cuisine they do just fine without it. 

If you want more info on human origins, I highly recommend PBS videos on evolution and hominids. Their documentary “In Search of Human Origins” was a major part of what got me into evolutionary anthropology. PBS also makes shorter, more specific videos, and I am working on making a YouTube playlist of videos about early hominids, which you can view here.

[sepublic]

            It’s a bit weird that Amity doesn’t react at all when Luz casually reveals her own intimate understanding of The Good Witch Azura during Covention, but consider- Not only was Amity focusing on the challenge… But Azura is probably one of the few points of reference that the Demon Realm has for human culture, anyway.

         So it’s very possible that Amity is under the assumption that Azura is popular, standard human literature back on Earth, because her perception of our culture is based solely on what few things she has to work with- Kind of like how certain Dinosaurs may not have been THAT prevalent during their era, but because they’re the only surviving fossils, they’re our only frame of reference, and so we always imagine the T-Rex as being super common during its time, when it might not have been.

         So when Amity finds out Luz is a human later on, this comes with the assumption that of course she knows all about Azura! Because again, since Amity is operating from the likely understanding that Azura is human literature- Seeing a human make a reference to it is a no-brainer.

         It’s one of the few things anybody knows about the human world, so naturally it’d take up most witches’ perception of our culture based on their limited view, and stand out that much more compared to nothing- Thereby exaggerating their assumptions of what it means to us, when it means a LOT more to witches because of that circumstance.

         In other words, witches only know humans by a few things, and one of them is an enjoyment of Azura; So when Luz references Azura, this only confirms and goes along with what Amity had already assumed about humans -and thus Luz- for a while anyway, long before the events of I was a Teenage Abomination.

         Really, what Amity would take more notice of is anything that goes counter to her understanding of humans, or adds to it- Such as Luz casting magic! Before Luz, Amity likely already had the mental image in her head of humans enjoying Azura anyway, and having access to books that she herself wasn’t aware of. If anything, humans would definitely know more about Azura than Amity herself! She’d be more surprised to hear that Luz didn’t know about Azura, I’d even argue!

         If anything, Amity might be setting herself up for surprise when she visits the human world, and finds out Azura ISN’T standard literature for our society… Surprised, and disappointed. And then I could see Amity going on a rant about how Azura totally needs to be appreciated more on a widespread, mainstream level, before deciding to dedicate herself to making people know about it.

         But yeah, just imagine Amity’s confusion when her and Luz are talking, and their conversation brings up what witches think the human world is like- And Amity suggests Azura being one of the most defining pieces of media in our world, so common and widespread that it increased the likelihood of some of its books making their way to the Demon Realm.

        Luz of course laughs and jokes, saying she wishes Azura was as well-known as everyone assumes and hopes it is. Witches only know humans by a few things, and with Azura as one of them, it distorts their perception of what a typical human is actually like, and I imagine Luz REALLY doesn’t help with that either;

        Probably even taking advantage of her role as everyone’s only frame of reference to spread some misinformation that everyone takes at face-value, because don’t question a world that’s so weird and alien anyhow! And even unintentionally, Luz sets off this very distorted idea of what a normal human is like, which will put witches in for a VERY big shock during some eventual crossovers and interactions.

        This discussion would be kind of a fun meta about how in fiction, a lot of people assume aliens or some other representative of another species would know EVERYTHING about their culture, as if us humans do. When this tiny piece is all we have, it really does mean everything and shape our entire perception and understanding, and fill in the gaps as the only thing we can work with to do so- Whereas for the actual people with its original context, it’s the most insignificant side-detail that just so happened to survive and make its way through.

        Just... imagine Amity proudly showing off her understanding of Azura to the next human she meets, certain that they’ll be impressed by this outsider’s intimate understanding of such an important piece of human literature, having prepared and psyched herself up in anticipation of this moment of meeting an entire world of fellow connoisseurs such as herself- Only for most people to be inclined to think Azura is Boiling Isles literature, because they’ve never even heard of it!

        That’d be a lot of disappointing embarrassment, but it matters to Amity, so her knowledge is still valid. Though, she HAD been looking forward to wowing everyone with what she knew... But Amity already made Luz’s day with that knowledge, and just that is enough to make HER happy and proud, too!

        Amity doesn’t need for this interest of hers to be popular, just for her to be able to share it with someone she loves, who will also reciprocate that hyperfixation as well- And she’s already gotten that in canon. Luz has already given Amity everything she wants and needs, there’s not much else she could really ask for... Amity is content, for once.

[justdaydreamsandimagines]

A Shirt A Day Keeps The Captain Away // Steve Rogers

A/N: I kind of kept running with this one because I loved the soft fluffy idea with Steve, maybe a little out of character? It’s not high art or big plot it’s just lots of silly for your day <3

(I ventured a smutty ending to this which involved an Avengers top with Cap lingerie, but I feared my best friend would take my Tumblr away!)

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Fem!Reader

~~~~~

It had been Steve who suggested you started training with Natasha about a year into your relationship, after a hairy incident with some attempted muggers in front of your shared Brooklyn apartment who hadn’t realised they’d chosen Captain America’s girlfriend to sidle over to one night.

So why on earth when he walked into the gym where you stood beside the redhead had the most thunderous look slapped across his face? Steve had never been quick to anger, quick to protect or even to rib someone about something (the “language” incident still fresh in the compound’s jokes), but never to cruelty or rage – especially not towards or even around you. It was Nat’s wide eyes and incessant elbowing that drew your attention to the brooding super soldier in the doorway but the smile his presence always raised on your face dropped with a sweep of his eyes over you before he huffed and turned on his heel.

“What the hell was that all about Y/N??” Natasha let out in bewilderment when you were alone again.

It wasn’t until that evening that any of you caught on to what was rubbing Steve Rogers the wrong way. Hanging out in the plush living room whenever you stayed over in the compound had become a comforting staple of the evenings, so it’s where you found yourself after your shower and nap. Comfort was indeed the name of the game for you to lounge on one of the sofas until everyone was done for the day to join, so the Iron Man sweatshirt Tony had thrown your way after he found you and Steve in a cupboard at his party adorned your torso over the jogging bottoms you’d left out for just such an evening. Nat joined you once again, this time with Bruce and Wanda in tow – all thankfully carrying armfuls of snacks and drinks – before everyone else piled in to help themselves while they waited on Bucky and Steve.

“So, Odinson, how’s New Asgard since I was last there? Valkyrie promised me a holiday and Korg owes me a remashf!” you direct to the blonde laid out across from you, taking a mouthful of your favourite dessert. The God of Thunder’s reply was cut short however, by the sound of the two super soldiers charging into the common area, Bucky’s head firmly under his friend’s arm before he escaped and threw himself behind your sofa.

“Rescue me Y/N he’s got it in for me!” was the not so manly cry that came over your shoulder as the two of you fell about laughing, ignorant to the companion who had skidded to a stop in front of you.

Only Steve’s attempt at quiet retreating footsteps brought you to your senses, as you once again had to watch the back of your partner as he left. With a dramatic huff of distress, you flopped down against the sofa and into Bucky’s lap where he had settled himself.

“Will somebody PLEASE enlighten me on what I or somebody else has done to the lovely cuddly Steve bloody Rogers before I disintegrate?!”

Having had all afternoon and now a fresh incident to muse on, Natasha ventured her newest conspiracy on the subject with a cackle that had her nearly knocking poor Sam’s beer out of his hand. “Of all the people I never took Mr Freedom Fossil himself to be a jealous person!” This cleared the situation up for absolutely nobody, the entire room now looking to the redhead in varying states of confusion, with frowns and raised eyebrows inviting her to elaborate. “What top did you wear to training today Y/N?” “I don’t know? I’ve just about gained back the ability to breathe after you knocked me on my ass six times!” Rolling her eyes, your friend leaned forward to gesture at your current attire, “it was the Spiderman one from Peter’s birthday, and the other day? When he missed you and Wanda at lunch? The Falcon hoodie Wilson had made after Bucky made another jab at redwing.”

It took Sam, Bruce, Clint and even Thor beginning to guffaw at your expense for your own eyes to go wide with realisation. “YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME – I’m being avoided because I’ve essentially collected Avengers team merch?!” Content in getting to the bottom of the mystery, Nat perched next to Wanda to open a new bottle while the others tittered into their food or cushions before moving onto the next game to be had. Bucky had gone a deep shade of pink in his attempts to stop himself from bursting into even bigger peals of laughter at his oldest friend’s antics whilst gesturing wildly that you should follow him to maybe shake some sense into his broad shoulders and hard head.

Leaving your very unhelpful friends to their revelry, you found your feet taking you back to Steve’s old room where he’d once taken to hiding during some of Tony’s more rambunctious parties. Sure enough, the door was ajar, allowing you sight across to where the man stood leaning against the windowpane looking out to the city below. Closing the door behind you both, you padded lightly into the room until you could wrap your arms around Steve’s waist to rest your head against his muscular back. Feeling him tense and then relax into your touch reassured you that you wouldn’t be immediately ejected from the room.

“Stevie…?” “Hi sweetheart.” “If I take the sweater off will you come and eat something and give your girlfriend a damn cuddle?” you smirked into his shirt, pulling away to look at him. A small sigh emitted from the tall man as he turned to face you, cheeks dusted with a blush you’d rarely seen and almost missed in the darkened bedroom. He allowed you to pull him to the corridor but before you could go any further together he stopped abruptly, bringing you closer.

“Why don’t you wear my things?” his voice uncharacteristically quiet against your hair. “I think you’ll find the t-shirt under this was actually yours at one time Rogers…” “You know what I mean Y/N.” “The Cap stuff?? I think Bucky stole the first training tee you gifted me on that date to the fair but most importantly,” hoping to push your point home with a finger jabbed to his chest, “my lack of America merch might have something to do with the fact I have the real deal in my bed?” At this the captain went an even deeper shade of red and nuzzled further into your hair, pressing a kiss to your temple then cheek then your neck in apology.

“Guess I just like knowin’ your m’girl” he mumbles against your skin, leaving you blushing a matching shade.

“Always Stevie. Never in doubt. Though I always thought petty jealously to be more Tony’s thing than yours, green is not your colour babe.” Pressing a soft kiss to his pouting lips you push him away and down the corridor. “Eat, hydrate, apologise for being a drama queen. I’ll be there in a second.”

Once he was out of sight in the direction of the friends who would surely not let him live it down anytime soon, you slide down the hallway to stop in front of one James Barnes’ room. Natasha was great for training or partying, but Bucky held onto your combined stash of lazy night-in attire for such an evening as this. Rummaging through the back of the wardrobe (taking a mental note to at least get the man a potted plant for the place) you emerged triumphant with the object of your search.

Steve was about to get up and hunt you out again when the sudden noise of wolf whistling from the team around him drew the attention to the doorway. Striding as dramatically as possible into the living room, you’ve become enveloped from head to toe in the bright fluffy Captain America onesie Clint and Laura had presented you with at your first Christmas with a big old crush on the super soldier. With the hood up it even sported a fetching soft version of your love’s helmet, that dipped to your eye level.

When you struck your best power pose before dropping into the (truly terrible for your knees) superhero landing, laughter and eager applause filled the room. Pulling yourself back up to your feet, you sweep into bows directed at each corner of the room, beaming at the bemused blonde now seated next to his buddies before taking the opportunity to launch yourself into Steve’s lap.

“Captain Rogers.”

“Miss Y/L/N.”

“Reporting for love, kisses, and a little ribbing for being an idiot sir?”

“Happy to oblige ma’am” came the chuckled reply, two long arms encircling your torso to pull you impossibly closer - a loud kiss pressed to your temple.

[sukipershipper]

I got you guys saying Yes so PREPARE FOR SOME WAMBUS/TRIFFANY HEADCANONS-

The two have been happily married for 30 years, but had a falling out on Snaktooth island, until they came to a mutual ground and their love was rekindled again.

When the two first met they were at the museum checking out the new fossil exhibit. They bumped into each other and started exchanging interests.

The two didn’t have that much in common but they fell in love with certain parts of each other’s characters. Wambus loves Triffanys desire for knowledge and her kind nature, and Triffy lives Wambus’ honest heart and hard working ethic

Their wedding was simple, due to Wambus not wanting to make a big fuss over himself, which Triffy happily agreed to. They had a few close friends over, and they were happily married underneath a gorgeous tree

Wambus loves showing his affection for Triffy through actions. He loves doing things for her, such as cleaning up when she gets tired, making her fresh food from the stuff he grows (yes he knows how to grow things other than sauce) or carrying her to bed

Triffany gives her affection through big actions, she knows that Wambus doesn’t like people making big fussed over him, but she can’t help herself! Only the best for her baby! She’ll plan super nice dinners, take him to shows, and even buy him some new plants!

Triffy has the cutest sneeze, Wambus melts every time he hears it.

Wambus actually has a lot of hair under his hat, he lets Triffy style it when his head starts hurting

After the whole Snaktooth island thing, Wambus grew to hate ketchup. Triffany could not have been more relieved when she saw him dump every single ketchup crop he had.

Wambus still doesn’t like Grample, so Triffy always has to plan hers and his’ get togethers when Wambus is super busy

Wambus would die on a hill for his wife, he loves her so freaking much

Their both a milf and dilf, nuff said

Triffany doesnt sleep well after the whole Snaktooth Island thing, so Wambus makes sure to give her the best cuddle he can when they sleep

They have 3 kids, they’re in their 50s what did you expect? Their names are Bronica Jr. (girl, 25), Rollo (boy, 21), and Pollarin (girl, 18)

They also considered a pet at one point but Wambus is still thinking on it, after dealing with all the bugsnax, it kinda throws off wanting a pet

Valentines are always super sweet. Wambus has lots of chocolate plants (thats probably a thing in their world) made up as a gift for Triffany and Triffy makes a special skeleton flower bouquet to give her hubby...then they probably shag afterwards but who knows?

Edit: Looking back I realize the Ketchup Crop one is pretty inaccurate and so it the one about Gramble kinda. Sorry bout that

[popculturebuffet]

Darkwing Duck: Just Us Justice Ducks

This is it. 7 reviews, 10 episodes, 2 teams,  7 brave heroes, 13 villians but only 5 of which are relevant here. All leading to this. One big final review of one of the most loved, most important and most awesome Darkwing Duck episodes, the ONLY two parter outside of the pilot in the show’s long history. If your just joining us, as hinted at in the opening sentence i’ve been doing reviews of every episode of darkwing duck featuring the first apperances of the Justice Ducks and Fearsome Five. The only exception was Megavolt, but I ended up doing Negaduck instead, so I could cover both Megs and the original version of Negsy in one fell swoop (A great idea and comission from longtime supporter of the blog WeirdKev27). All so I could give this the build up  it deserved and get the background I didn’t have years ago when I wanted to watch this, wanted to see all of the first apperances first.. then just didn’t get around to it, not even finding out the episode order is an utter nightmare.  While i’ve given out about this before, allow me to do so again: Due to prioritzing what got done first over proper order, ALL of the justice ducks first appearances eps were aired after this and while Morgana at least got an episode before this, it was her second appearance. Same with LIquidator and Quackerjack though like Morgana, Quackerjack still got an episode or two before this one. So yeah as a result to most kids it was a bunch of heroes just introduced, up against two new villians and 3 old faviorites. You kinda see the problem. It’s why I watched it in chronlogical order: to have this be a gathering of established heroes against darking’s worst foes... and the debut of the worst of THE worst, the true Negaduck at long last. So with the proper build this deserves and not much else to say, let’s look at this two parter and see if all my effort was worth it and if the hype is real. Let’s, get, dangerous under the cut

We open in St. Canard in Darkwing Duck’s secret HQ over the bridge, where he’s getting ready to go out with Morgana and does... things to his hair. 

Excellently terrible hair do.. seriously I love a good pompadour as much as the next person, probably unheathily more than the next person, but this isa bit much and adding a curl to it is just.. 

I mean Superman’s hair looked better at this point, and for those wondering “Wait superman usually has a pretty good look”.. welll. 

Yeah.. post-ressurection.. he had a mullet. Look there are only 4 people in the world who can pull of a mullet: Brock Sampson, Patrick Swayze (God Rest his soul), Hank Venture and Daniel Cooksy as a teenager. And he ALSO put a curl in it and it still looked okay because that’s one of this things along with being selfless, and idiots calling him bland for you know, being a kind hearted symbol of humanity at it’s best. But man the mullet was just not for you bud. 

Morgana naturally tries to change it while Gosalyn watches and...

Yeah as you can probably guess a LOT has happened.. and all off screen. Morgana is not only fully on the side of good apparently, but she and Darkwing have gone from simply flirting with one another to dating AND Gosalyn has met her and they fought the astro mummies together.. no wait that was the Caballleros yesterday.. but still eveyrthing else is PRETTY important stuff and even with the messed up episode order the kind of thing you’d ASSUME an episode would be made about. I mean this is her meeting darkwing’s kid for fuck’s sake. That’s a big step in any relationship let alone one just starting out. And trust me, I didn’t miss anything: every other morgana ep seems to have them already in a steady relaionship. I DO think it’s stuff like this why some fans aren’t crazy about this relationship. Me I think he’s honestly too good for her. 

But before they can go out for whatever vauge date they were going to have the power goes out and DW notices it’s megavolt and prepares to go after him only for Morgana to question him about their date. 

Morgana.. sweetie.. the entire city is blacked out. Nowhere will be open.  But Gosalyn offers an alternative, Morgana go along with him and while both are reluctant they go with it. So Darkwing confronts Megavolt... and soon finds a bunch of chattering teeth. Yup, it’s Quackerjack as the two have teamed up, and together easily defeat Darkwing, putting him in an electric chair. The two also really get along which makes sense: Both have similar personalities, being kinda nuts indivdiuals with a singular obession , which compliment each other as toys often need electric power after all. THey strap darkwing into an electric chair, that got dark fast and he begs morgana to save him.. only for her to accidently turn him into jello. I mean.. they say pudding but.. their diffrent things. Just because world famous sexual predator Bill Cosby promoted BOTH for the jell-o brand doesn’t mean Jello is magically pudding. If he could magically make one thing 

Point is Darkwing is jello, the villians mock him then set up some kind of device and head off.. while also mentioning a mysterious boss. I wonder who it could be. 

Nah.. too obvious. Darkwing is humilated and of course blames. morgana.. for saving his life.. as while the jello humilated him he’s also you know not dead. 

Anyways Darkwing storms off while Morgana worries he likes her. Morg.. the guy got pissy because you saved his life the wrong way with some bad aim. And before that clearly just wanted you there as a trophy to impress you instead of because he valued you in any way but your looks, because let’s face it he’s shown no intrest so far in any way that isn’t superficial and neither have you in him. You both need to actually try to deepen this or end it.  Anyways enough me ranting at 90′s cartoon characters, it’s time for our next Justice Duck to enter the episode as Stegmutt is selling hot dogs now, but no one stops because they just.. run in terror. Poor guy, good thing he’s too oblivoius to notice. Maybe Dr. Fossil had a point.  Back to the plot and it turns out the next phase in the Fearsome Five’s plan is to take out the police... okay so wait are they the bad guys or not? Questions for later. Point is we get a nice mismatch as Bushroot’s timidity contrasts perfectly with Liquidator’s showman ship and he drowns them out. Darkwing prepares to attack, but gets interrupted by Stegmutt, refuses his help.. and we get the best and most iconic gag of the episodes: Darkwing makes a joke about playing pretend.. and senseing Stegmutt is a dummy have him pretend to “put out the darkwing”.. which equates to pulling a Droopy while saying “put out the darkwing”. So the two villians finsih their job and high five and this is one of the most charming parts of this 2 parter: the camradere between the five minus negaduck. The other four just.. easily bond and enjoy each ohters company, only fighting ONCE, and then being on the same page after that. 

It’s also what makes them so deadly: the go too for ANY superhero team in any medium is to simply get the vilians to fight each other as most vilian teams are built on REALLY shaky ground, a mixture of egos and ambitions that unlike with most superhero teams, can’t really be overcome with the greater good.. because their only in it for what they want. The thing that keeps any of these groups together longterm.. is camradere. I’ts why the Flash’s Rogue’s gallery is easily one of the most dangerous; while there are outliers like the reverse flash, most of them are part of the rouges, and ascribe to their rules and morals.. and thus the camradre and support that comes with it. One guy with a cold gun or a super flamethrower or a weather wand or mirror powers.. is pretty damn tough. All four and more together, willing to bail one another out, having their own tailor and weapons hookups. The four remind me of that: a bunch of guys who have the common goal of beating darkwing but likely just.. hang out when not trying to do crimes. Well except negaduck, hence the four thing. By not being able to just easily turn them on one another, it means you HAVE to take them all at once. Even if you got rid of negaduck as both the comics and the 2017 reboot have shown.. you still have 4 immensley powerful, quackerjack included, supervillians who easily can work together instead of a bunch of angry assholes who tend to work better one at a time and just with a united goal. Point is Darkwing Duck is Darkwing Fucked.  Darkwing once again refuses help and yells at Stegmutt, because he’s been evne douchier than usual, and then makes the mistake of yelling at Neptunia, who promptly has her octopus friend throw him into the distance because .. well he deserves it. So while Darkwing patches up that wound to his pride and his spleen, we finally meet our vilians new boss: NEGADUCK. And... they do not explain why a guy who looks exactly like drake is here, if he has any relation to the other negaduck he was inspired by, or why any of them would trust him. This would bother me more.. if A) it wasn’t too much of a stretch for darkwing to have foes we hadn’t seen given the whole casefiles thing and B).. well okay this isn’t really a logical opinon but since when have that stopped me. 

There’s a damn good reason that Negsy has one of the biggest episode counts of Darkwings villians. The guy is just.. the perfect foil to Darkwing, the Joker to his batman, the reverse flash to his flash, the green goblin to his spider-man, the sabertooth to his wolverine. He’s Drake’s equal and opposite number. While Drake can’t take two steps as Darkwing without wanting some attention, Negsy is happy to avoid having any until the moment strikes. While Drake wants attention as much as he wants to do the right thing, Negsy just simply loves doing what he’s doing. To quote the Spies are Forever song “Somebody’s Gotta Do it” “Can’t you see.. how much I enjoy this, i’d never avoid this, cause buddy i’m a diffrent breed. This is my calling, and though it’s appaling, I love making people bleed.” 

He just LOVES being evil. He’s as comically devoted to being a bad guy as Darkwing is to being a good one. He loves the idea of being able to shoot a bunny, he revels in his villiany and he loves every second. But as I said unlike darkwing he dosen’t let his flaws get in the way of his villiany as much. He still does on occasion, he’s still a version of Darkwing after all, but he has his eyes far more on the prize and is far less prone to distraction. He dosen’t care about toy deals or infamy.. he just wants to watch the world burn and laugh manically over the flames. While his obessions CAN be used against him.. as this episode shows it only lasts for a bout a second and he’s usually ready for it. He’s a Drake with no morals, no connections and few drawbacks. And he’s also every bit as clever, with him winning for most of the two parter. And not because the plot needs him too.. he’s simply THAT good at planning, with his plan here being geninely clever. I’m REALLLY hoping for Frank to lead the reboot because combining ALL of this with his reboot backstory will be divine if he gets to. Negaduck was very much worth the hype. 

So his next plan, itself clever.. is to dress up as Darkwing and inflitrate SHUSH, taking out the next possibly thing that could stop them. And he does so easily, even while Darkwing is there and to show off just how friggin awesome he is predicts what Drake will say. The only thing that trips him up is drake hilarious pointing out a cute bunny, because he and the other Negsy apparently share the same burning hatred, causing him to get out his shotgun. And can I just say how wonderful it is he can use a shotgun?  That’d never pass nowadays, which isn’t the worst thing but i do question why VILLIANS can’t be shown being reckless with fire arms. Their the bad guys, kids aren’t going to see it as a good thing. And they still equate laser guns with guns. They aren’t going to trivilaize gun violence because of Darkwing Duck or Looney Tunes. 

Even being found out Negaduck still acomplishes his goal and floods thing. So now both the cops and shush are down, and things aren’t looking great. Darkwing’s still determined he can do this himself and beat them.. but it’s transparent that not only he CAN’T and won’t admit he’s outnumbered but freely admits he just wants the biggest win of his career by taking them all out 4 to 1. Probablem is.. he’s not spider-man and this isn’t the sinister six. As I said he’s not fighting a villian group whose egos clash so badly , at least whent hey first formed, they have to take turns or in later iterations have some member blackmailed in> Their working in concert. He needs help but as we’ve seen multiple times now Darkwing just can’t accept it. He has to be in the limelight and while he does have to relearn the lesson .. it works better here as personality flaws aren’t the kind of thing that fixes itself overnight. Sometimes never. It feels less like it does sometimes in cartoons, where the character just.. never fucking learns, and more like Darkwing has learned it.. he’s just so very human and thus can’t resist sliding black. Less peter griffin more bojack horseman is what i’m saying. I mean there are still bits of just poor writing, but for the most part his ego is like most of his enimies: he just can’t get it to stay beat. 

So it won’t suprise you that when the national guard and gizmoduck are called he’s not happy. You may recall when I reviewed “Tiff of the Titans” I REALLY hated this verison of Gizmoduck. He was concited as Darkwing but treated like he wasn’t, treating the daring duck of mystery like a criminal for stupid reasons and was generally pretty useless and obnoxious. The fact that hamilton camps gizmoduck voice sounds not like a 20-30 something like Fenton is but like Grandpa Simpson mixed with a dash of dudley doo right dosen’t help. 

It’s not lost on me that Dan Castellaneta’s character is NOT the one that sounds like Abe Simpson either. But while that problem is still around... the rest of them.. aren’t. Gizmoduck’s character development actually stuck from last time, so rather than be a dick to darkwing he’s warm, friendly and happy to accept his help when Darkwing shows up, thinking his old “Buddy” is just volunteering to help instead of screaming at him for doing his job. Not only that but while he still has elements of a standard superman type “Cape” hero parody... their more toned down and actually funny with him giving giant speeches, and that being useda gainst him and being over the top.. but still being the noble, big hearted hero you’d expect from the roll, just wanting to do good not for the Glory he gets anyway, but because people need him. In short.. he’s 100% better thsi go round. Well okay 80.. he still sounds like this. 

Gos also brings Morgana along, because apparently she forgot the entire episode where her father was so obssed with being noticed he tried to upstage his 10-12 year old daughter... and you know the hundred other times Drake put his ego over his job. 

So he naturally wants to shoo her while Gizmo. .warmly welcomes the help because he recognizes that people are counting on them not counting on him.  Just then the villians make their move and activate the electro slave device from earlier which.. does nothing like that’d sound like and just creates a giant electrical wall, cutting off ST. Canard and bringing the plan full circle: The villains have now cut off the town and taken out almost anything that could oppose them. And despite you know everything Darking only gets more pissy when Stegmutt and Neptunia show up., Stegmutt because he still wants to return Darkwing’s change as Darkwing bought a hot dog from him and Stegmutt’s also a really sweet guy and Neptuina because well... .the ocean’s her thing and a bunch of bad guys just put a giant line through it she’s now on the other side of. Gizmo suggests the obvious: It’s a day unlike any other when a threat no one duck, or fish or dino duck, can face alone. It’s time to assemble! And Gos is more than excited about the idea, suggesting the name Justice Ducks which.. is honestly fairly weak in my opinon. Not BAD but very clearly just “Justice League” with Ducks in it. Given how good the series is at names, you think they’d of taken more than five minutes on this one. Maybe it was disney mandate I dunno.  But the concept itself.. is brilliant and I wish it came back in other epiosdes; Taking a bunch of other heroic characters in a setting and making them into a team is always a great idea, it’s why the tmnt unvierses have been using the mutanimals more and more lately, and they do ballance each other out nicely. You have a nice contrast of powers: while multiple have super strength, stegmutt is your bruiser, Gizmo is the tech guy, darkwing’s the strategy, morgana handles magic and Neptuina can swim in anything and is super strong and agile outside and inside water, so as long as she can keep hydrated, she’s useful> Which by the way has ALWAYS been the case for aquaman.. except the superfriends version. 

He really does suck and ruined it for the rest of them till Jason Mamoa and his mighty abs, coupled with Geoff Johns run on the charcter that served as the foundation for that movie, finally rescued the character from a fucking decades old cartoon’s smear campagin.  They have the makings of a great team.. it’s just Darkwing dosen’t want a team and screams at everyone to get out and that he dosen’t need them.. I mean he does try to be softer on Morgana but.. he’s still a dick and she really should dump him. Seriously, their attraction is superficial, at this point at least we’ll see in Feburary if it gets any bettter, he dosen’t respect her as a person, and now he’s having to restrain himself at yelling at her.. for HELPING HIM. When he clearly needs it. Holy shit... I was not prepared for that amount of douche. And this would sink the two parter.. were this not clever setup for one hell of a downfall and not a key part of his character. Like has been said: Ego is a massive part of him, and as Tad Stones has put it his real arch enemy. It’s been the basis for several episodes and as we saw in the pilot was his motivation for getting into crimefighting in the first place. He means well and clearly has a heart.. but this is just as much about thwarting evil as it is the attention. And here it’s used perfectly as in the reverse of the gizmoduck episode, where he wanted attention but for fully understandable reasons and judged Gizmo more on stealing his thunder, which while petty i’ll admit is a bit fair given Gizmo did NOTHING in St. Canard but got the key of the city while Darwing had saved it multiple times at this point. 

Here he’s being petty and selfish.. and he has no good reason. It’s just his own ego wanting the credit for everything when it’s not what he or the city needs. Honestly this feels like an ahead of it’s time parody of how Batman would be written when written poorly sometimes in the years after this episode:  a massive dick who thinks he knows better than everybody else and everything else should be entrusted to him because he’s the goddamn batman, the kind who throws people out as potential parts of his family for petty shit and acts like a controlling ass and okay maybe this is spiralling a bit. But the refusal to see any other way is right? Yeah that defintelyf its darkwing like a glove and eveyrone leaves either bummed or pissed at him. And the most pissed? Launchpad who while agreeing to it, his face and tone clearly mean he’s disapointed in his buddy for acting like this when now is REALLY not the time. 

And I wish.. we got more on this because Launchpad disappears till the ending scene after this. No really. Despite being Darkwing’s best friend and sidekick and despite warranting a spot on the justice ducks and despite having every reason to pitch in. he just vanishes. I mean Ducktales may of gone overboard in not having him around since Let’s Get Dangerous, but at least that’s a valid reason: he has another family, he’s really busy and Scrooge has another talented pilot to do the job for him. Granted he’s clearly still doing it offscreen at times but he was both a major part of an hourlong and will be part of any possible spinoff. And hell even back in season 1 when the character ballance was at it’s worst... Donald and Beakly at least HAD reasons for not being in a whole lot of episodes: Donald HATED his uncle, HATED adventure, and HATED the fact his kids were following in their mothers footsteps as he only saw death at the end of it. While they SHOULD have found ways to include him more and his exclusion was pretty bad... he at least had a reason. Here launchpad just has to go now his home planet needs him. And he’s not the only one Gosalyn gets more, she’s worried about darkwing, we’ll get to why in a second and wants to go but Gizmoduck refuses.. and then ALSO vanishes. Which makes even less sense as when has Gosalyn EVER listned to an authority figure? Especially when her dad might be dead? It’s just grossly out of character for her to agree to sit things out and not just tag along with steggmutt anyway once gizmo can’t stop her. I do get this is about the justice ducks but there’s no reason to neglect the other main characters. At least have Negsy capture them too or something. Cripes. 

So yeah the “thinking he’s dead part”. Darkwing sets out to find the five’s lair and misses the big honking flag Negaduck set up, but finds a crumb, puts two and two together and finds them.. as Negaduck planned. Down to the crumb thing as, in my faviorite line of the episode, he planned on Darkwing missing the flag and focusing on the flimisiit clue instead. Naturally they kick his ass, EASILY, and throw him out a window to his death and in classic bond villian fashion don’t check for proof of death. Krakoa would be ashamed. So part one ends with darkwing duck getting thrown to his possible death...

Only for part 2 to pick up with him landing in a trash truck before exiting. And this.. is what makes the ego parts tolerable.. Darkwing.. earnestly reflects, depressed he let his own ego get in the way of things and shoo off his only hope, and thus let the villians take over the city, with Bushroot’s plants harassing people, quackerjacks teeth running the police, and Megavolt having taken the power company and using it to shake down locals and Liquidator flooding part of the city for a plan we’ll get to in a moment. He’s at his lowest point and tht’s while it work: his hubris DOSEN’T get unpunished, he’s fully sorry for it and while he dosen’t out and out apologize to them, he’s not only genuinely contrite but does work well with them and evenly when he finally does get back to them.. but we’ve got a bit to go before that.  So with Darkwing missing Gizmo takes over as big good and not bein ga prick eagerly takes the others help Neptuina nopes out of helping, which fits her personality, so with only three left because he dosen’t consider children useful  which shame on you. I mean i’ts responsible from a real world standpoint but not from a cartoon show standpoint. But anyways they split up gang: Gizmo will go take the power plant back, Morgana will try and use her spells to find the lair and Stegmutt will find darkwing. I do like despite how they neglect Gosalyn that her friendship with Stegmutt was remembered and used as a plot point here. 

So we then get to a rather repttitive part of the two parter. It’s not lacking in good gags or character moments but it’s basically the same scene repeated 4 times just with a diffrent scenario and gag for each of the justice ducks and the fearsome five member they encounter. They do their respective schicks the hero is defeated.. this is 5 or so minutes of a 20+ minute episode. Not TERRIBLE stuff, iv’e seen worse repttition, but not terribly intresting compared to the rest of the four parter.  So, Neptuina encounters Liquidator, whose scheme is selling rafts to people to not drown in exhange for a millioin dollars.. or whatever they have he’s not picky, and they fight but Liqui ultimately wins, Gizmoduck, in the best of the four sequences, swoops in to stop Megavolt and not only lands on his foot.. but spends so long speechifiing Mega gets him from behind, phrasing. Stegmutt hilariously tries disgusing himself with Groucho glasses and is bested by Quackerjack, and Morgana finds the lair but gets taken out by bushroot, though her pet spider archie escapes to go warn the others. 

So after all that Archie makes it back to darkwing’s hq.. only for launchpad to squish him. “ew a bug!”.. just a great quick laugh. Thankfuly he’s more resilent than the average spider and is fine once Gosalyn scrapes him off and they now know the five are in trouble. Also I was wrong Launchpad does return.. for this one scene. And neither get into action once Darkwing returns and after an overly long bit of him deflecting blame to the point I was screaming. 

That being said it is nice when once Darkwing is aware of the situation he gloats a little.. but still goes to save them without any hint of caring about doing it all himself. He learned his lesson.  So at the Lair of the five, Negsy shows what a sadsitc bastard he is, another great side of him.. from a writing standpoint at least. It shows that like darkwing despite a comedic exterior.. he’s VERY dangerous. And he’s set up speciic tourtures for each of the five he has: He’s hooked up Gizmoducks armor to a device that lets him control it’s power flow, so right now it’s entirely drained.. but he can overload it and electrocute him to death when he flips THE SWITCH. Neptuina is stuck under a heat lamp and will fry when he hits THE SWITCH. Stegmutt is stuck in a weightless enviorment that will also loose air when he hits THE SWITCH and morgana is in a chair that will crush her tod eath when he hits.. THE SWITCH... he really loves THE SWITCH and props to him. A lesser villian would’ve had all the traps have a diffrent trigger which while making it harder on any rescuers is just a time waster asking for the heroes he hasn’t gotten to yet to break free. And while it is based in his sadism he still fully intends to watch the deaths personally. Seriously he’s got all his bases covered.. and would’ve won.. if it wasn’t for the rest of the five.  The rest of the five are fighting over territoiry: Buddies they may be but they all want the pie. Negaduck, in his most badass scene shuts them up by pulling out his signture chainsaw for hte first time and scaring the crap out of htem, then using it to carve up the model of the city: They each get a quarter.. and he gets all the loot. Which they dont’ like but agree to to not die today. Though really... what’s the value of that? They have a full city held hostage, control over a quarter each, and no real way to SPEND the loot without letting someone else, say scrooge mcduck, in to stop them. Just give him the money and let him sit on it Smaug style. You get a quarter of a new york sized city to yourself to live out your dreams. I’d love that... maybe nto become a supervillian for that but still, point is you have carte blanche jsut take the W.  Darkwing meanwhile uses Nega’s scheme against him and plans to be delivering skulls, after flowers only piss nega off, and then knocks the guy out.. though his attempt at playing Nega fails as the Four have wisely decided that since they outnumber him and a four way split of the loot is better than none of it, to kill him. Nega.. is not pleased and just wants them to attack him, and they do, and it seems darkwing’s going to have a front row seat for THE SWITCH. But Darkwing recovers, and we get a great tug of war between him and negsy as the switch is turnd on and off on and off till Darkwing finally wins, and then frees Morgana and apologizes and has her free Gizmo, and so on and so on. So our team is reunited, Darkwing’s finally ready to lead and thus we get our battle cries “Justice Ducks, ASSEMBLE!” “Fearsome Five, GET OVER HERE!” And the two face off

And the battle.. is fantastic. Easily the series best so far as everyone gets a moment to shine. Neptuina takes out both Liquidator and Megavolt, this time beating liquidator by creating a whirlpool inside him and turning him into a watery tornado and crashing him into megavolt before he can get stegmutt. Gizmoduck beats Quackerjack handily by using a drill on the teeth, great gag then giving Jacky some ansteic.. a boxing glove to the face. And Stegmutt takes on bushroot and when unsure of what to do.. we get a truly wonderous callback as Stegmutt.. honestly dosen’t know what to do.. so Darkwing gets some payback and tells him to “put out the bushroot, put out the bushroot” you can guess what happens next

Or if you want the more recent versoin

Point is three down two to go, and we get a call back to the pudding thing with Morgana trying to hit liquidator.. before Darkwing in a show of how much of a team player he is now, offers his help, simply having Morg teleport some instant pudding mix over the guy... I mean at least it’s brown this time even if i’ts still  in a jello mold. And to finish it off he and gizmo awesomely use a mixer on both sides. So our heroes have triumphed.. almost. Negs has the controls for the barrier and runs out planning to destroy st canard if they refuse.. then being Negaduck decides fuck it i’ll do it anyway... but Darkwing stops him and we get a slapstick beatdown as DW uses an anvil a pie and other classics and utterly curbstomps his nemissi in an wesome scne. The day is saved, the generator shut down and the city freed.  So we wrap up with the Justice Ducks celebrating.. with Gos and Launchpad. I have an inlking how that conversation went. 

Darkwing relcutnatnly is forced to eat his own words and admit he both enjoys the team and needed their help, before heading off on that Date with Morgana.. though Gizmoduck tries to make it a group thing. Dude no one likes a third wheel.. not even when i’ts ninja brian. So Darkwing uses the iris out to escape, but Stegmutt does try and give that quarter back first, with Darkwing, in a genuinely sweet moment, telling him to keep it and then going off, having earned his happy ending and grown as a person.  Final Thoughts: This episode was WORTH the build up I gave it. It turns out I really didnt’ need most of the intro epsidoes, as while it enhances the villians the heroes are all given decent enough introductions apart from morgana so tht even without the context of how darkwing knows these people it still works. It’s a thrilling, tightly paced for the most part, hilarious and wonderful two parter that ties a huge chunk of the show together into one hour long masterpice. I had my issues of course and i’ve stated them: Gosalyn and Launchpad doing nothing, the pacing towards the middle of part 2.. but otherwise.. it’s perfect. It’ has a great character arc for darkwing on top of everything, once again having his ego bite him in the ass but in a unique enough way it dosen’t feel like a retread of the pilot, and having him genuinely feel bad about it and grow. a bit smug when he learns he has to rescue them sure but he’s never smug to the heroes themselves. And ironically.. he gets his big moment. While he dosen’t beat the five himself he still infliatrated their hq, beat up their leader, saved his friends and then beat negaduck all by himself AGAIN. It may of not been the big moment he wanted.. but it’s the one he needed.  As for the road to the justice ducks itself.. it was a fun ride. Only one honestly two bad episodes; Tiff otf the Titans and Paint Misbehavin and even those had their moments, paticuarlly Misbehavin’s art sequences. The rest of the episodes ranged from alright to standout and overall it was a hell of a time.. so i’m going to rank all the ones i covered leading up to this review. Just Us Justice Ducks (Both Parts) Negaduck Beauty and the Beat Dry Hard Jurassic Jumble Ghoul of My Dreams Something Fishy Fungus Amongus Whiffle While You Work Paint Misbehavin Tiff of the Titans And i’m proud to say this is the first ongoing project on the blog, the first story arc or what have you, i’ve completed. While I DID do a four parter of catch as cash can, this is the first one i’ve done over several months that i’ve completed and i’m proud of it. Does this mean i’m done with Darkwing?

Next week we’ll be wrapping up some more unfinished buisness with another Darkwing Double Feature, this time covering the short career of Quiverwing Quack and in Feburary, and the reason I spent so much time catching up, we’ll be seeing both Morgana and Negaduck again just in time for Valentine’s day. After that?

We’ll just have to see won’t we? So until there’s another rainbow, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. 

[lanceadeae]

dolomite & fossil!

dolomite: a sleep headcanon. || crystal asks

jeralt tends to function more on a series of naps, strung tightly together rather than a full, solid “block” of sleep. he never sleeps all that long, and is prone to particularly volatile stress dreams. so, he prefers not to even try, at this point. it’s a combination found somewhere between years of service as a knight, his mercenary career, and both of them coming with the common demand of someone needing to take night watch, either over garrisons or camps.

seeing as jeralt has a generally hard time falling and staying asleep—due mostly to age, and ceaseless worries, and life constantly happening—as well as his issues with leaving anyone else responsible for the security of his general vicinity or company—due to mostly the same factors as above, really—he would frequently volunteer himself for night watch, and take short bursts of shut-eye where he could justifiably get it in the mix. 

think a dad falling asleep on the couch, then going to bed, then getting up and going back to the couch, then complaining he’s super tired the next day until about 2pm, when he takes another nap. that’s kind of the vibe here.

while spending all of this time not sleeping restfully, jeralt tends to journal or stargaze, though not with much purpose. he records the days happenings or stares at the sky knowing nothing about it, and not particularly caring to.

if he needs to fall asleep, there are… methods. he isn’t averse to sleep in a bottle, let’s say.

fossil: what my muse's dream job is

at this point, jeralt sure as fuck doesn’t know if any job’s a dream job because they’ve all sort of been one nightmare after another, for him. despite this, he’s very driven by his career(s) so it’s a bit more tangled than “i do not dream of labour.”

being a knight was never a dream job per se, but as a second son it was more or less a duty that he was willing—proud, maybe—to rise to, in his family’s name. then came his tenure with the knights of seiros. while he’s incredibly decorated (both in accomplishment and folklore) because of that service, he’s not sure if he ever really wanted the responsibility that came with his penultimate post as captain and blade breaker. the extent was a little to showboat-y.

but, then again, he is by times a bit of a control freak and certainly doesn’t know how to be anything but a commander and captain anymore. leading a band of mercenaries was definitely more the speed and level of manpower he wanted to oversee, but he found the work a little less fulfilling.

(complicated as circumstances became between jeralt and the church, he did believe in their cause.)

in all, he might be working his dream job right now,

Jeralt: Here I am again, the office of the captain of the knights. That said, I'm merely here to assist. Apparently the current captain is getting on in years … [and] has a hard time keeping up with the responsibilities of the job. That's where I come in.

— Great Tree Moon 1180, Explore Phase, FE3H.

doing “assistance” to the current captain (aka taking the helm of command, while not quite formally or publicly resuming the title of captain) suits him just fine.

[sinnohborn-trainer-evan]

Real talk about DP remakes

I've got some questions I want to ask you all.

I want to know what you guys do or do not want to see added to Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, what you want changed from the original or from other previous installments, or if you don't want anything changed from the original and previous games aside from modern conveniences.

I encourage you guys to even share your own ideas of what new things you would introduce to these remakes in the notes!

These are my questions for you fellow DP fans and Pokémon experts alike.

What optional activities and mechanics do you want to see added to these remakes that didn't get included in them? (e.g. changing clothes, music style changer [like the GB Sounds key item], Super Training, Pokémon Amie/Refresh, Mega Evolution/Z-Moves/Dynamax,)

What would you not want to see in the remakes?

Do you like the chibi world style or do you prefer it would be the full-scale world size like Sun and Moon or Sword and Shield?

If you were a developer behind this game, what new things would you add to the game that have never been seen in the official Pokémon series before?

Do you think they will make a Platinum version later down the line or do you think they will do what they did with Pokémon ORAS and do a Delta Episode post-game for the lack of a Platinum release?

What do you think a Platinum Delta Episode would look like?

How many Pokémon do you think will make it into the game that aren't region-exclusive?

What do you think they will do with event Mythical Pokémon that involve taking on a special sidequest, only made available by an event key item, like Oak's Letter for Route 224 or the Member Card for the Harbor Inn in Canalave City?

Here's some of my thoughts. For starters, the chibi style hit me out of nowhere, needless to say. I think I kind of like it, BDSP makes me think of what Nintendo did for the Link's Awakening remake, as it's meant to be a faithful homage to the miniature style of both games as they were handheld exclusives.

When I think of the potential for a post-game Platinum Episode, I feel like what they would do is have the player return to Spear Pillar to find Cyrus at it again, trying to summon one of the two creation legendaries, only to get trapped in the Distortion World by Giratina, and having both Cynthia and the player enter it to catch Giratina and once and for all imprison Cyrus in his own personal hell. I say this because Cyrus just abruptly leaves after seeing that you've caught or defeated the creation being while it was enraged.

Lastly, as an extra few things I want added to the game are: a new and more personalized form of Pokémon Refresh or Camp, like maybe you could go back home to Twinleaf town and spend quality time with your Pokémon in your bedroom sorta like Hey You Pikachu (without an awful mic) or Pokémon Channel. Secondly, despite that you'll mostly only ever get to see your character minimized like the rest of the world, I at least want there to be an option to switch into the Platinum clothing that Lucas and Dawn wear in that game, just to add some bit of customization.

Finally, I feel like there's a lot more that can be done in the underground section of Sinnoh! In that game, you do pretty much what you do in ORAS and make secret bases for your friends to discover and steal flags. But you also get to mine for things like star pieces, revives and fossils, as well as items you can trade to NPCs or even friends for decorations for your secret base. If Dynamax Adventures have anything in common with the Sinnoh Underground, it's that it involves exploring deep underground caves. So maybe they could do something like that, only it would put more emphasis on finding really rare items (like Mega Stones and Z Crystals) and really rare Pokémon.

That's all I have for thoughts for the remakes coming out late 2021, if you have any thoughts or ideas of what you hope to see in these remakes, I'd love to hear them!

[jurassicsunsets]

question: do you think there’s fossils underneath the deepest sea floor? Do you think we could ever get down there to dig them?

Totally there are! In fact, much of the seafloor is made of fossils.

To properly answer this question we first have to talk about hard-rock geology. 

Part 1: Hard Rock Cafe

When I say hard rock I mean igneous rocks (rocks that formed by cooling of molten rock) and metamorphic rocks (rocks that formed when already-formed rocks were cooked and altered). This is to set it apart from soft rock (sedimentary rocks—rocks that formed from bits of stuff getting squished together) and prog rock (rock that formed when 1960s musicians took LSD). Hard rock is what forms the basement of the world, beneath all the other layers of rock, and so it’s what we have to start with here.

The ocean crust acts very differently from the continental crust, and that really deserves several long posts of its own. I’ll summarise it by saying this: Ocean crust is thinner, younger, and moves more than continental crust.

(Image: A gif of seafloor spreading. Oceanic crust moves away from the central plate boundary in both directions, like two conveyor belts going in opposite directions.)

Oceanic crust is formed at the boundaries between tectonic plates, and specifically where the plates are pulling apart from each other (AKA a divergent boundary). This exposes the mantle that is underneath the crust, causing lava to pour out.

Now we come to a very common misconception. It’s very common to think that the mantle is a liquid magma, a molten ocean upon which floats the Earth’s crust. But this isn’t actually true. The Earth’s mantle, despite being at very high temperature, is solid. This is because the enormous weight of the rocks above creates so much pressure that the mantle takes its most compact state—solid. (As a bonus fact, the minerals that make up the Earth’s mantle are lime green.)

(Image: A chunk of peridotite, the rock that makes up much of the Earth’s mantle. As promised, it is indeed lime green, and is made up primarily of olivine—the same mineral that makes up the gemstone peridot. There’s also some pyroxene in there, the same mineral that makes up asbestos! [Source])

Despite being solid, the mantle is still a fluid. That might take a bit to wrap your head around, so I’ll help you out. Think of silly putty; it’s a solid, but also can flow and deform in a ductile manner. Make that a lot thicker and that’s kind of how the mantle acts.

Back to the divergent boundary. The seafloor pulls apart by tectonic forces, exposing the mantle. Remember, the only thing keeping the mantle solid is the weight of the rock above it that compresses it. So, when that pressure is removed—pow! The mantle melts, and erupts as lava. This lava meets the cold ocean and “freezes” quickly into solid rock, schmamming onto the sides of the plates that are moving apart. And so new crust is born.

If you have taken any middle-school science you probably know that heat makes things expand. And if you haven’t, then you’re now getting a leg up on your classmates. And if you have taken middle-school science but didn’t learn this, I can’t blame you. The school system is a mess and it failing you is not your fault. The fact that you’re reading this is proof it didn’t manage to completely kill your curiosity, so good on you!

Where was I? Oh, yeah. Heat makes things expand. When things expand they became less dense, and so they float a little higher. This means that the brand-spanking-new ocean crust at the mid ocean ridge, which is still hot from being erupted, “floats” on the mantle higher than than the older, cooler crust.

(Image: A map of the world, with particular attention to the topography of the seafloor. It’s not all flat, but rather, has long mountain ranges down the centre of the ocean basins (shown in dark blue). [Source])

This causes the divergent zones in the middle of the ocean to form long ridges where the new crust floats higher than the older crust. Because the crust moves away from the middle ridge like a conveyor belt, the older crust gets pushed further and further away as new crust is created at the ridge.

We can take samples of these crust rocks using super deep rock-coring rigs, and then we can use these cores to conduct radiometric dating and find the age of rocks in different parts of the ocean. This is shown below:

(Image: A map of the world, showing the age of the oceanic crust. The youngest rock is shown in red and it right near the centre ridges of the oceans, while older rock is further away. [Source])

You can imagine “rolling back” the rocks progressively towards the mid-ocean ridge, until South America and Africa fit together right at the ridge—as they did about 100 million years ago.

When crust gets too old, it cools down and becomes more brittle. This can cause it to break and sink under continents, a process known as subduction. This is currently occurring on both sides of the Pacific ocean. The Atlantic, however, has not begun subducting away yet.

Part 2: Soft rock and smooth jazz

All the above was to give a necessary context to talking about fossils in the ocean. We now have a maximum age of fossils that we could possibly find in the ocean; any older than that, and the rocks would be subducted underneath continents and returned to the mantle. The fossils on top of the oceanic crust have to be younger than the crust itself.

So, how are these fossils preserved? This is where we get to sedimentary rocks. I mentioned above that sedimentary rocks form primarily by broken-up bits of other rocks getting schmammed together into a bigger rock. This happens in the ocean, too. Rivers carry sand, silt, and clay into the ocean, and deposit it.

However, these particles can only travel so far. Eventually, these tiny particles of rock will start to sink. The smaller the particle, the easier is is for currents to sweep it up and prevent it from sinking; therefore, the sediment size generally gets smaller the further from shore you get (because bigger particles settle out first).

(Image: A digram of sediment transport, showing that larger particles have a greater settling velocity and thus don’t get carried as far away from shore. [Source])

This isn’t the end-all/be-all, by the way. Submarine avalanches called turbidity currents can cause bigger sediment particles to be transported much further, as the underwater landslide can glide on a sheet of water with very little friction, and can thus travel far out onto the flat abyssal plain while moving really fast—like, 60-100km/hr.

(Image: Schematic view of a turbidity current, showing how they form from underwater landslides and travel across the flat ocean floor. [Source])

Both of the above mechanisms can bury the remains of organisms, but there’s an even more significant kind of rock in the deep ocean, and it’s made up of fossils.

See, in the deep, deep ocean, far from shore, it’s hard for sediment to be transported normally. So there’s not a crap-ton in the way of mud or sand. Rather, the sediment is formed largely of the shells of organisms that live above or on the seafloor.

The most common of these are single-celled organisms called foraminifera, or “forams”, which make calcite or aragonite shells. (Calcite is the stuff that makes up chalk, or antacids, or marble, and aragonite is just another form of calcite.) Most foram shells (or “tests”) are near-microscopic, and look like this:

(Image: Scanning electron microscope images of various shells, or “tests”, of foraminifera. Some look like coiled nautilus or snail shells; others are elongate tubes; others look like a bunch of spheres glues together. [Source])

Many of these foraminifera are part of the plankton, and float around by the surface. This is because sunlight makes it much easier to precipitate calcite out of the water. When they die, their skeletons sink to the bottom of the sea and pile up, creating what will eventually become limestone. 

Since different parts of the ocean crust are different ages, there is different thickness of sediments in different parts of the ocean. Plankton don’t really care about what’s going on at the ocean floor—it’s 3km below them! So we can think of them as living at all parts of the ocean (though more live at warmer temperatures). Their skeletons sink to the floor of the ocean wherever they are. The oldest crust has been around for a much longer time than the brand-new stuff, so it’s had more time for forams and other sediments to accumulate on top of it. Brand new crust is rough and naked, but old crust is smooth due to being covered by a thick blanket of limestone.

Many other organisms may be preserved in limestone. Some of them, like molluscs, sea urchins, corals, sponges, and trilobites, have shells that are themselves made up of calcite. Others, like vertebrates, are made up of other materials, but can still get buried alongside other organisms with limestone.

Unfortunately, most of the limestones we’ve studied came from shallower seas that covered the continents in bygone ages when the sea level was much higher. Because oceanic crust is eventually returned to the mantle, it doesn’t enter the permanent record very often. Even if it did, there’s still the massive logistical hurdle of digging for something beneath kilometers of water and hundreds of metres of overlying younger sediment.

But that doesn’t stop me from dreaming of someone pulling up a deep-ocean limestone core with a complete plesiosaur skull inside.

[teethands]

FF HEADCANON LIST

CRACKS KNUCKLES these are all imported from google docs bc thats where ive been keeping all my thoughts :] im not sure if theres any repeat HCs in here and im sorry if someones got to me before i have but these all came from my own brain !!! these are all very miscellaneous HCs but they generally revolve around vivosaurs and revival. some of them are rather macabre so a solid CW warning here for mentions of dinosaur body horror and death. ALSO SPOILERS FOR FOSSIL FIGHTERS 1 AND 2 BUT MOSTLY 2 LETS GO

modern boneysaurs/zombiesaurs

i think it is entirely possible to replicate a boney/zombiesaur outside of whatever sorcery zongazonga used to resurrect them in the first place. i think its relatively well known undead vivosaurs are a direct result of ZZ and his ancient tournament, and although zombiesaurs are usually claimed to be used in such tournaments most often, i think boneysaurs are just a variant of that but where less used due to weakness and general incompatibility. theyre all undead vivosaurs. thats it. on to the meat of this headcanon, boney/zombiesaur resurrection: i think zombiesaurs could be the result of attempting to revive a deceased vivosaur, while boneysaurs might be caused by man or machine malfunction while reviving a fossil. i think this might be an interchangeable effect: zombiesaurs might emerge from resurrections, and boneysaurs might emerge from revivals, although altogether i think this entire phenomenon is extremely rare. fossil revival goes entirely against the laws of nature and thus, nature must step in at some points to attempt to stop the process, although common fossil park high-tech machinery probably stops most instances like this from happening. boneysaurs emerging from failed revivals are almost always the cause of very poor cleaning, (maybe attempting to revive a heavily damaged, failed fossil head?) or outdated/unkempt fossil revival machinery. boney/zombiesaurs were so common in ZZ’s time because of such poor methods of revival. at some point during a “doomed” fossil revival, the skin and flesh of the vivosaur its supposed to resemble never quite “renders” in. the skin is registered and stitched together, but only holds the bones in place with an unknown black substance, leaving it void black in the same way a texture in a video game may just fail to load. presumably boneysaurs are almost always immediately dead in the revival chamber after the process is over due to lack of functioning organs, skin, etc, without some kind of support or magic. or maybe they are magic- every bad unnatural part of a revival machine fused into one being, and thats what allows them to live on. on the other hand, this could mean any type of boneysaur could emerge from any dinosaur- pterosaurs, therizinosaurs, raptors, maybe- maybe- just a thought, maybe even super revival vivosaurs could have this effect happen too. so, so rarely though. so rarely, its probably never even happened before in recorded vivosaur revival history. 

as for zombiesaurs- this phenomenon could happen when a recently deceased vivosaur is attempted revival. recently deceased, as in, undecayed flesh-still-in-tact. i imagine this happens much more often than boneysaurs- although, i dont think many people are trying to revive dead vivosaurs.

zombiesaurs, fresh from the revival chamber, are almost always damned and in pain, and serve as a reminder to fighters that the laws of nature can only be twisted so far, and they are best be put down. presumably no fossil cleaning facilities will allow a fighter to attempt to revive a dead vivosaur due to the danger and the frightening, disturbing nature of zombiesaurs. fossil damage + neon goo every fighter has encountered the bright purple (green in the OG FF) substance that appears during cleaning when a fossil is too damaged in one area. this material wouldnt be produced from the fossil itself, but rather generated by the fossil cleaning machinery when it detects damage within the bone, kinda like a 3D printer. this is why fossil cleaning is so meticulous, and why it has to be done in such specific conditions with heavy surveillance and a tight time limit. this prevents the vivosaur from having broken bones when it is revived- it is a bright, obvious substance, and it feels much like a warm, firm jelly with a hard, synthetic core that sews bones together. maybe its different in other regions, explaining the color difference amongst games. it is almost completely unnoticeable when the vivosaur is revived, nearly perfectly mimicking bone and flesh to prevent issues later on in the vivosaurs life. as good of a bone mimic as it might be, i think a very heavily damaged bone would still be a weak point during battle or an area of pain or irritation for the vivosaur. that is why it is best to clean your fossils as well as you can. maybe this goo is designed to be replaced with real bone by the vivosaurs body later in life, but i have yet to think about that too much. perhaps its soft enough to be destroyed and replaced by the body’s natural healing functions, but hard enough to act as bone? And perhaps thats why its best to let your vivosaur rank up (rest+heal) before taking them to battle. UNRELATED HEADCANON- GUHNASH COULD HAVE HAD A COOLER DESIGN. I DONT LIKE HIM HE LOOKS LIKE A TADPOLE. i have a vision in mind for a cooler guhnash redesign- i like the snake-ish look, but maybe he could be like. an infinitely long being. nobody knows where he starts or ends. a head at the front of an infinitely massive body that consumes everything, and nobody knows where the eaten planets goes. kinda like a jörmungandr-like being. idk i just think a “planet eater” with living brains should be more eldritch and god-like and mysterious. ANYWAYS vivosaur ecosystems? there is literally no way a vivo ecosystem wouldnt form. NO WAY. so many dinosaurs and seeing how OFTEN they are abandoned- refer to the opening scene of fossil fighters champions- it would not be any surprise feral vivosaurs wouldnt breed and form small ecosystems among themselves and around fossil parks. its not an uncommon sight to see pterosaurs flying overhead or sauropods munching on trees, although id bet theropods and more dangerous vivosaurs would have teams of park rangers to keep them under control. refer once again to FFC opening scene. this would explain the seemingly infinite amount of fossils in the dig sites, how you can find vivosaurs in only specific areas- although thats leading into a rather dark topic and i would rather not talk about it right now LOL i will leave that open to interpretation. jurassic park knock off SOME OTHER LITTLE MISC HCS TOO SHORT TO WRITE ENTIRE TOPICS ABOUT: because ZZ is a mix of boneysaur and zombiesaur and hes also an ancient sorcerer he smells fucking rank. so fucking bad. hes got maggots and shit hes only held together by magic but somehow he kicks ass. but hes fucking stinky so at what cost boneysaurs have no concept of feelings and arent really desirable as vivos and zombiesaurs only know rage and pain, also making them undesirable, for very very good reasons. they are taboo to talk about among fighters but most of the time they are only myths because of how rare they are feral vivosaurs dont have medals, only revived vivos do. that means they are standalone animals and they are also generally undesirable for fighters but they can still be tamed, if one wishes. theres way, WAY more fossil parks and dig sites than shown in the games. fossil battling is as well known and used as much as people love music and video games in the fossil fighters universe. vivosaurs are an essential part of society, although there is often controversy on the ethics of fossil battles and revival. pokemon knock off alright thats all i feel like typing for now thanks for reading this far lads. i love dinossuars. i wanna write some things on dinaurians but maybe later after ive introduced saar here :)