#old man rants at paleontologists

[theprissythumbelina]

I can't tell if my dragon worldbuilding has gone too far when I start reading scientific papers on bat wig morphology and comparing them to bird morphology.

[saturnniidae]

More rotbtd modern au info

(Some of this was in the other post but it's more organized here. Hopefully)

After The Incident, Hiccup, Stoick and Astrid move from Berk (tiny, mostly unheard of, self-governing island somewhere in the Norwegian sea) to Burgess Pennsylvania. Supposedly for Stoick's work, but they all know it's to get away from Berk after what happened, a fresh start. Stoick's rarely home (and a bit emotional negligent) but Hiccup's self sufficient and has been since he was old enough to use a stove, plus Astrid's there (to attempt) to keep him out of trouble.

Hiccup and Astrid are trans. This is part of why Astrid is staying with them 'temporarily' (she needed to get away from her parents so she could breathe)

Astrid comes from a famliy of athletes with rather high expectations.

Hiccup and Astrid grew closer essentially bonding over being 'town outcasts' after she came out (the other teens didn't really care and were respectful, most of the adults had s noticeable change in behavior; lots of dramatic sighing and disappointment over 'what a promising young man' Astrid was). Astrid occasionally talking about gender (especially since she's very blunt and rarely afraid to say what's on her mind) is what triggered Hiccups realization

How it went: Hiccup, who's been crushing on Astrid for a while *finds out Astrids a girl*: oh shit! Am I lesbian?? *Hiccup a while later, looking like a drowned rat with a fuckass uneven haircut*: No. No I am not.. (Astrid's so awesome for being his bi AND trans awakening)

Stoick was unsure at first (Hiccups done a lot of weird random things, he couldn't tell if this was serious or not) but after a talk from Gobber he was supportive and mostly just happy Hiccup was making friends (Hiccup was on neutral ground with most of the kids but was still mostly excluded though he talked to Fishlegs occasionally + Ruff & Tuff would follow him around for front row seats to any disaster he caused and since Snotlouts his cousin, spending time together is inevitable) and Astrid began spending more and more time over at their house.

Toothless is a scrappy tripod cat of unknown origin that Hiccup accidentally hits with his bike a bit after moving to Burgess (this happened because he was fed up with having even worse balance than before due to the. Yknow. Lack of slightly less than half his left leg. And Astrid – off handedly during a 'don't do dumb, dangerous things' rant – advised against doing stuff like biking which gave him the amazing idea: 'bike ridings a good way to work on balance'). After watching it speed limping away to some alleyway, Hiccup resolves to gain the cats trust so he can help it and make up for what he did.

The rest is under the cut because this is a monster of a post

Hiccup slowly realizes this cat is way more intelligent than it should be, in an almost unnatural way. He doesn't care, he's just pleased its begun allowing him to pet it and even started to follow him around (even if it's mostly for treats. Progress is progress)

As much as Hiccup loves Astrid he thinks she worries about him too much; she always has, but it's worse now more than ever and he finds it almost overbearing

After The Incident Stoick's a mix of avoident when it comes to the word disabled or amputee, as if in some kind of odd denial, while also being simultaneously overprotective and distant somehow. Hiccup is not pleased with this

Valka is absent but she and Stoick aren't divorced. She works as a paleontologist and when she's not traveling shes in the lab. Their relationships quite strained. She calls monthly to check in but it's usually Hiccup who answers (he eagerly talks with her about her work, but still feels a bit like he's talking more to an acquaintance than to his mother)

A large factor in how Stoick treats Hiccup after his amputation is due to the fact he was there (or at least for the aftermath) when the initial injury happened and saw how much general destruction there was, and was absolutely horrified. Hiccup's banned from inventing for the foreseeable future. ("YOU THREW OUT MY SOLDERING IRON?!" "No. It... got lost in the move." <- being bad at lying runs in the famliy)

Hiccup gets to the point where the cat willingly follows him inside through an open bedroom window and even sleeps on his bed. During this Hiccup realizes the cats missing some teeth, hence the name. He also slowly makes the realization he can communicate with Toothless on an unnatural level. This also doesn't bother him (though he logs his discoveries in a journal), he's elated to have made a new friend (especially since things with Astrid are currently rather tense)

Now onto the Rotbtd parts

the Dunbrochs already live in Burgess. Merida is Hiccups cousin he's met only a few times before when he was little, they barely remember each other. So much so that Merida doesn't even realize Hiccup's trans since his names the same she's just like 'yeah, that's my cousin, the tiny one with the goofy name'

Merida and Astrid meet and hit it off but their dynamics kinda funny. Astrid has somewhat of a crush on Merida and thinks she's amazing (archery and fencing + various other sports + she's never afraid to say what's on her mind + she's funny and cute and has pretty hair etc) and is trying to be nonchalant about it, Merida also thinks Astrids super cool if a bit withdrawn and feels she'd be a lot happier if she loosened up (she would be) and also if she stopped worrying about Hiccup so much.

Rapunzel is a weird sheltered (fucked up) homeschool kid Merida met on accident a few weeks prior to the Haddocks (+ Astrid) moving in, and is determined to give core childhood experiences to

Jack is kind of a loser. All his friends are the kids at the daycare he works at, and his best friend is his 11 year old sister (he doesnt get along well with most teens bc they think hes too enthusiastic or childish <- just neurodivergent), though he kind of knows Merida from speaking to her when she's sent to pick her brothers up.

He doesn't actually become friends with her until he sees Merida trying to get Rapunzel to use some lended rollerskates at the park. He was curious as to what they were doing and offered some tips (he skateboards but his sister's more interested in rollerskates so he knows some stuff) then they got distracted and started talking about random things until the subject of Merida's self imposed 'mission' came up and Jack offered to help.

Jack meets Hiccup by accidentally hitting him while skateboarding (Hiccup's first thought is 'well I suppose this is what I get after hitting a cat with my bike") and freaks out because he thinks he broke Hiccups leg or something since the prosthesis got forced into an unnatural angle on their landing. Hiccup thinks his panic is funny at first until he realizes how genuinely freaked out Jack is and tells him he's actually fine. Introductions are made and Jack offers to show Hiccup around since he's new, he only accepts because Merida keeps saying he needs more friends.

Hiccup and Jack start spending more time together after learning they have similar interests (Jack doesn't believe Hiccup's claim he's the best snowboarder on Berk until Astrid backs him up, Jack's kind of scared of Astrid but thinks she's cool), tastes in bands and comics along with their general (sometimes considered odd by others) curiosity with the world. Also Jack is enamored with Hiccup's inventions (Stoick thought he could stop him but underestimated Hiccup's resourcefulness. Recycled tech stores, thrift shops, and hardware stores are what his allowance goes towards.)

Later Merida decides to introduce Rapunzel to Hiccup, they're both kind of awkward until she brings up Rapunzel's art and how she likes birdwatching (from her window and yard since she's technically not supposed to leave, but they don't need to know that) and Hiccup's immediately interested

Hiccup likes charcoal and mostly sketches animals and plants to log them, but Rapunzel gets him into painting and portraits. And she, like Jack, is also incredibly interested in his inventions and other crafts (he sews and also took up woodworking a few months ago before they left Berk)

Merida decides to make a group chat for all her new friends that seem to be social recluses (not out of choice), but is startled when Hiccup mentions he and Astrid share a phone. It's technically his but he barely uses it + the last one got crushed in his bike on accident (and the one before that got dropped in the ocean. on accident) so he's not really meant to use it unless he needs to. Astrid uses it fairly often to text Ruffnut and Heather. Hiccups not very interested in it because he's fine with his laptop and mp3 player (Valka gave it to him last she saw him on his 14th birthday, hes 16 now).

The woods of Burgess are said to be haunted (something Jack swears is true. He says something breathed on the back of his neck while he was climbing a tree once) which endlessly fascinates Hiccup (he's always had a fascination with magic and the supernatural) so he often wanders around but since he's not allowed out at night he doesn't find anything. Yet

He also discovers some supposedly haunted closed down buildings on the edge of town he wants to explore. The others for the most part have no idea why he's so interested but Jack's immediate reaction is to say yes since he's curious as well then the others follow

Hiccup also has a tendency to forget he can't just wander wherever he wants like back on Berk. (On Berk he and the other teens could go pretty much anywhere no one cared about 'tresspassing')

Hiccup can't really see the 'ghosts' but Toothless can so Hiccup's aware of their presence through him

Jack isn't a huge fan of Toothless and neither is Merida. They think he's too smart and that it's uncanny. Neither of them will say this to Hiccup's face. Though they've mentioned it to Rapunzel, who insists sometimes animals are 'just Like That' (ofc she'd say that. her chameleon is like a human soul stuck in a lizard body)

One of the first scenes I thought of that sparked this AU was the big four, sitting in a 7-Eleven parking lot, horrified, watching Jack mix a five hour energy into a can of monster because 'it'd be so funny'

And that's it for now! (I have some extra stuff on Berk but that's kinda like background details)

Tysm if you read all this!! If you have any questions or even suggestions/ideas PLEASE send me an ask

[crispysnake]

Scuttles in late to Kiki and Percy watching documentaries, apologies if any of this has been poked at before:

Okay but each of them trading off who is solemnly like 'its the circle of life' versus being super emotional when a predator makes a kill or harsh conditions claim a life in nature docs. A tradeoff between Keyleth Knowing nature better despite being more emotional and Percy getting hit right in the wiggly trauma feels.

It's also worth pointing out that not all documentaries are actually... yknow, educational. A lot are biased or otherwise include some pretty incorrect info. (Blackfish is an infamous one, or that one dino doc that fuckin. took quotes out of context and pissee off the paleontologist consultants.)

Percy would not handle inaccurate documentaries well. At All. Oh man he'd get prissy and snip about why this is a COMPLETE misrepresentation of the data, until Keyleth finally pauses and he can rant about it. I think Keyleth would be better at hatewatching than Percy, if that makes sense? I can't articulate Why at 1:30am, but I think she'd better be able to have fun with it and consider why they're presenting it this way than 'they're Wrong and how Dare they be'. Unless the potential consequences of the misinformation come to mind, in which case she'd be miffed too.

You're never too late!:))))

and oh yeah, they're both old enough to know that's just how things works, but yk some days watching a baby gazelle get separated from its mom and killed does hit a little bit harder for them for there own respective reasons😭

and please I can imagine them doing a documentary hate party for the worst rated ones in their field, and it just two hours of percys angry fact checking, It gets him HEATED, he can't believe they got even the simplest mechanic wrong! how could they! that's his favorite part! I think keyleth can hate watch easier cause she takes comfort in knowing that she Knows things and she Knows when the information is wrong, but she is indeed affected by percys energy, there's more passive aggressive comments when stuff dangerously dumb gets said.

like I think Keyleth got more heated but also found it stupidly dumb, when Discovery Channel released that Megaladon documentary claiming its still alive, and forgot to put a disclaimer at the end saying it was fiction😭 imagine if that came out when she was younger? little Keyleth would have been DEVASTATED when she found out it wasn't true.

[phantomwitch16]

Humberto Lopez is a goldmine of a character

I haven't posted anything that was my content for a long time now, and I decided to change that with an essay about my favorite character from Marvel.  With the new development that has happened, I decided to celebrate this Marvel character's return which has been in a limbo state for over half a decade. I will be going into spoiler territory, so if you want to read the comics to learn more about this character, go and read the comics and have your adventure experiencing his journey along with his friends. If you are interested in the character but don't want to read the comics (or go to the wiki), there will be a quick synopsis of his character later on down in the post, but I won't be putting down the necessary details so that this post won't get too long.

He first appeared in the comics was in Avengers Initiative: Featuring Reptil #1 in 2009 and reappeared in Avengers Academy comics that went on from 2010 to 2012. He was also part of the Avengers Arena comic series as one of the game participants and lasted from late 2012 to 2013. However, most people may recognize him from his animated appearance on the Super Hero Squad Show from 2009 to 2011, voiced by Anthony Del Rio. He was also in Avengers Assemble: Frost Fight, made in 2015 with Del Rio returning to voice the character. With these recent developments, in May of 2021, Reptil will be getting his mini-comic series by Terry Blas, and Enid Balám called Reptil...on the Brink of Extinction.

The main reason why I am making this post is that I believe Reptil is a severely underrated character within the Marvel universe. At the time of first writing this, he had not appeared in much since 2013 in the comics or 2015 in an animated setting. I began writing this over a year or so ago after glancing through the Marvel wiki to see anything new that happened since I lost interest in the comics after his supposed 'death' in Avengers Arena. Since then, there have been no new developments to his story until a while ago when there was an announcement on Twitter about his comics' return with his comic series and an appearance in a one-shot Spider Man comic.

To start this rant about him, I'm going to recount his origin story to bring people up to speed to explain who he is, what powers he has, what kind of person he is, his journey and my personal feelings about him before going into the possible story lines Marvel could do for after this short series. On the other hand, pray that they decide to take him out of the creative limbo within the next few years again, straight after this when his journey is getting better. And if you're wondering, yes, I'm still salty that he's been pretty much dead for nearly a decade.

Who is he?

Humberto Lopez is a Marvel character who is a Mexican-American teenage superhero known by the code name Reptil. Like many young kids, he wanted to be a superhero, mainly an Avenger. His parents, however, mainly wanted him to follow in their footsteps and become a paleontologist as they did.

In his first appearance, he was about sixteen years old when he joined the Initiative after his powers appeared to locate his missing parents. When they were declared dead, he went to live with his grandfather in Nevada. Not long after his arrival, he almost gets caught in a landslide that almost kills him when the amulet turns his legs into those of a dinosaur.

What are his Powers?

Humberto's powers are directly tied into the amulet he found in the dig with his parents. With it, Humberto can turn his body parts into those of a dinosaur or any prehistoric animal. If he wanted to, he could turn his entire body into that of the dinosaur. With this power, he runs, flies and becomes as strong as any dinosaur he desires. The major drawbacks of this power are that when he transforms into a dinosaur, he loses control over his instincts and becomes a threat to others. This would make him similar to the Lizard almost when you think about it in that way.

His origin story

His origin story is told in Avengers Initiative, where he made his first appearance. There, we learn that Humberto found his amulet during one of his parent's archaeological digs. During another dig, his parents disappeared without a trace, leaving Humberto to be placed into the care of his grandfather.

After nearly getting killed during a rock slide, he finds out that the amulet transforms his body parts into those of a prehistoric animal and only seems to be reactive to him specifically. He registers with the Initiative during the Skrull invasion. Still, it isn't until a year later, after his parents go on missions when Stregon starts attacking SHIELD bases, that he is quickly trained and joined a small squad led by Tigra to track him down.

However, they later learn that the attacks were Stregon's attempts to locate and rescue Moon Boy, captured by SHIELD scientists. Humberto sacrificed his place among the Initiative to bring Moon Boy back to the Savage Lands and meet Ka-Zar, who swears to help him find his parents.

His Journey as a Superhero

Months after his time with the Initiative, he is kidnapped by Norman Osborn and several other kids to push their powers to the limits. These kids include Hazmat, Finesse, Striker, Mettle and Veil, most of whom were kidnapped or captured against their will and were pretty much tortured to gain results. Soon enough, the Avengers come in to rescue them just before Osborn's HAMMER agents attempt to destroy all evidence of their crimes, which included the Reptil and the other kids and offer them a place to join Avengers Academy.

At the Academy, it isn't long before the kids find out why they are there. While they are led to believe that they were brought in to become the Next Avengers, they were brought in to prevent them from becoming rogue. While Pym and the others know that Humberto is a good kid who wants to help the others with Tigra even telling Pym about him, the major threat with him, as stated previously, is that transforming into a dinosaur will make him lose control over his instincts. 

Anyway, Humberto begins to learn more about himself, his powers begin to develop, more students come to the Academy, and relationships develop with the team, primarily a romantic relationship with Finesse. However, the relationship gets strained after he switches bodies with his future self so that the future Reptil will become a definite one. There he learns of the possible future that he has Finesse and their daughter Maria, which strains his relationship with Finesse in the present. He eventually starts to distance himself from her and eventually develops a close relationship with White Tiger due to their similar powers following a fight with Jeremy Briggs. 

During Christmas, he, along with several other teens, get kidnapped by Arcade to be part of a game where he and the teens would have to kill each other until one remains to walk away. He, Hazmat, Mettle, X-23 and Juston were just some of these kids kidnapped by Arcade.

On the first day, several of the kids died, with one of them being Mettle, who chose to sacrifice himself to protect his girlfriend, Hazmat. It's a downward spiral from there where it leads to the Hazmat and X-23 fighting to the death after X-23 got affected by a trigger scent, several of the kids dead and Humberto's fate is left ambiguous for several years.

My feelings for his journey and the new solo series

Overall, I am excited to see Reptil coming back to the comics. He was one of the characters that got me interested in the Marvel Universe when I started watching the Super Hero Squad and other animated shows made at the time. Shows like Wolverine & the X-Men (Nightcrawler), Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes (Wasp & Ant Man) and Spectacular Spider Man (Spider Man).

This series and an appearance in another comic is a big step for Reptil, and I hope he gets the recognition he deserves and hopefully has more story lines in the future.

Possible story lines

I'm excited about this series is the possible story routes that the writers could go in for the series and afterwards. 

For me, I hope that we get a better look at his mental state and the struggles that he had to face since. Given what he had been since the disappearance of his parents and what had happened at the end of Avengers Arena, it made me wonder if the writers will mention the difference between the person he was and the person he is now. I kind of hope he isn't entirely the same person after that. The experience that he and the other kids went through was very traumatic, and I want there to be some acknowledgement of it like there was with Hazmat and the other kids in Avengers Undercover. 

Before this, I considered making a fan-fiction about Humberto just leaving the Academy, trying to overcome the mental hurdles that are likely PTSD, depression and anxiety. I wanted it to be kind of angsty while showing a bit of truth of someone who is battling those hurdles, feeling alone and showing a bit of self-hatred over his inability to help his friends. Being the leader of his group of heroes in the Academy, a big piece of responsibility that's placed on a sixteen to a seventeen-year-old kid, then being put in a situation where your teammate and one of your best friends died in front of your eyes, I think would lead to Humberto also developing an inferiority complex. It wouldn't surprise me if he felt partially responsible for Mettle and Juston's deaths or even some of the other deaths that happened in the Arena.

And with that, I will be listing nearly everything that has happened to him since he had the amulet. His parents going missing at fifteen, he gets kidnapped a total of three times (first by Osborn and the second and third being by Arcade), having trouble controlling his powers. He is scared to do so, being the leader of his team of Academy students, getting mind-swapped with his future self and seeing the possible future he could have with Finesse and their daughter Maria, having his powers briefly ripped out of his chest (yeah, that happened), losing his friends in Avengers Arena and almost dying from getting nuked by Hazmat.

I hope that we get to see the extent of his injuries because I feel like it would tie in well with the first point above. I mean, you can't say that Humberto isn't resilient. He survived Hazmat having a meltdown and almost got blown to bits. Traumatic experiences can leave a devastating blow on a person. One such injury that might profoundly affect him because it has a tie in his possible future with Finesse. A part which may not exist anymore… Yeah, this sounds dark, but it is plausible.

I hope that Reptil will appear in other Marvel story lines as the main character or make brief appearances here or there. Maybe even join the Champions since we saw him staring at the news looking at Miss Marvels, and maybe even other heroes his age. Maybe interacting with Moon Girl due to their connection to Devil Dinosaur as a partner, hell, maybe even going back into his roots at the Super Hero Squad and maybe developing a mentor-student relationship with Wolverine...if he's still alive, that is...I don't know; it's been a while since I've been keeping up with the comics.

[thelastspeecher]

I fucking knew there was something off about that post I saw the other day about a new major paleontological find.

basically, people are losing their shit over a New Yorker article published about a new lagerstatte (fossil mother lode), dubbed “Tanis”.  the researchers claim to have found a preservation of the exact moment the Chicxulub crater was formed (aka the asteroid impact that killed non-avian dinosaurs at the K-Pg boundary).  and I’m not gonna try to disprove it.  that’s not my place.  I don’t work with metazoans, I work with microbes.  I am a geologist, tho, which is part of the reason I was able to recognize right away that something smelled a bit fishy.  luckily, actual paleontologists are raising the alarm about it, too.

here are some sources for my long rant about how people need to be a bit more careful when they read summaries of scientific studies.

first off, the article very much painted the head of the team in a “fighting against the institution” light, saying that his discoveries were discounted bc he messed up a reconstruction of a new dinosaur species once.  that fucking pissed me off.  yeah, sure, everybody messes up, but when you say “hey I found a new dinosaur species” and publish a whole paper about it and it turns out you used turtle bones for part of it?  people are going to be a bit more careful.

you can make a narrative, yes, but goddamn, don’t paint the entire paleontological community as being stuffy and grouchy and old just bc they are making sure he’s right this time.  a major find like this needs multiple verifications.  in science, you can’t just say “I made this HUGE discovery” and expect everyone to take it at face value.  think about it.  it took decades for evolution and plate tectonics to be treated like the valid theories they are.  and if you’ve messed up with a discovery once already, your new findings should be examined extra closely.  this random white guy isn’t fighting against the man and being downtrodden by a disrespectful community (unlike minorities in STEM fields).  he’s going through something that every scientist goes through.  verification of your fucking findings.

and that’s not why scientists feel a bit weird about this whole thing, in the first place!  a lot of paleontologists are actually very excited by what all has been preserved!  hell, I’m excited, and I’m a geomicrobiologist, not a proper paleontologist!  the thing that’s making a lot of people feel weird is that the New Yorker article was published before the actual paper detailing the findings was.  that’s...weird.  generally speaking, before you get an article written about you, your results have to be published.  and you should want them to be published.  you want the scientific community to go over your results before the public grabs them and misunderstands what they mean.  which happens all the time.  also, the scientific community going over your results before the public sees them is what prevents you from becoming a laughingstock later on for messing something up.

but the real icing on the cake is that now that scientists have read the paper themselves, there’s a disconnect between what the paper says and what the New Yorker article says.  the New Yorker article mentions a shit-ton of dinosaurs.  those dinosaurs aren’t mentioned in the paper at all.  the only dinosaur evidence mentioned in the paper is a hip bone from a Triceratops.  that’s it.  that’s not denying that there’s really fascinating stuff at the site.  the soft tissue preservation on the fishes is incredible, and the stratigraphy shows some amazing patterns.  there’s cool stuff there!  but none of that cool stuff is dinosaurs, despite the New Yorker article claiming it’s a dinosaur graveyard.

To quote Kirk Johnson, an expert on the formation the site is in (x):

The weird thing is, DePalma [the head of the study] has been very hyperbolic and cryptic for the last six years. The paper is fine, and we can talk about its significance, [but we] have it paired with the New Yorker article, which has a lot more nuanced detail and a lot more claims. It just makes us all a little bit queasy.

TL;DR: in no way is any of this a case of “spunky young scientist fights against the old, outdated institution”. so many scientists are excited about this, they’re just rightfully cautious. the New Yorker article was published before the paper, which is...weird.  and scientists feel weird bc the New Yorker article says “there are DINOSAURS here” and the paper says there aren’t any.  that’s fucking weird, folks.  there’s some shady shit going on here, which is sadly overshadowing the amazing discoveries that have been made.