I've seen that guy! Kayaking down a lazy river and there's a dude catching and cataloging turtles. Stopped to chat a bit. No idea how the hell he got to where he was. No boat, no roads near.

Same trip I saw a couple of teens in the water around a bend. Waved at them, wait... WTF is that in the water? Whole ass horse comes busting out the river.

SAME trip, we got to where the rednecks hang out on the weekends. It's a little village of shacks wrapped around a long, slow bend in the river, super cool. Dozens of adults and kids playing around, and a 5' gator standing on the shore, stiff as a statue, just staring straight ahead.

I need to go kayaking this weekend.

No love for the mad theorists huh? The mad philosophers, linguists, mathematicians, ...

So, basically, it's mad to be outdoors collecting data and not in the lab. Got it ;)

Henge from attack on titan is what comes to mind as a crazy field scientist.

That's basically the tv series Eureka

Indiana Jones, anyone? Lara Croft? They were scientists and unhinged and ran around in a lot of fields.

This is Tannis from borderlands lmao well the OG borderlands anyways. Tennis never needed to be a full fledged npc, let alone a siren.

This is clearly wrong, all field scientists are mad to begin with

The paleontologists in the Jurasic Park. When I saw the movie for the first time, I thought they were unrealistic and very mad. Who would go straight to a giant herbivore like Brachiosaurus or Triceratops? Surely they would be aware of the huge danger, right? Then I got to know a few zoologists and yes, this is exactly what a field zoologist would do. They would also survive, magically.

but which one makes the best evil serum ?

Surprised nobody has mentioned Seanan Mcguire and the Incryptid series yet. Awesome books