#jokes i think ian malcolm would make

[papasbaseball]

Trust me. I'm a math scientist.

A mathocist.

[lovelyfantasia]

Garden of Eden

PAIRING: Ian Malcolm x fem!reader

SUMMARY: Y/n is a transfer student to her new college where her last year is about to start and she needs one more good night out. Going to a bar two towns away changed her fate of the night, having an older man in her arms by the end of it. What she wasn’t expecting is that she would see him a few days later – teaching the class.

WORDCOUNT: 2,417

A/N: I got this idea when I listened to the song Garden of Eden by Lady Gaga and I just had to write it for my first Ian Malcolm imagine. Shoutout to Mother Monster for making yet another banger album to blast in my car this summer.

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“I’m honestly so excited for tonight. I just know I’m going to be chain locked to the library for the next few weeks, so I need this.” you say as you triple check your small black bag to see if you didn’t forget anything while in the back of the taxi. 

Your childhood best friend, Marina, agrees with you and goes on about how she wants the night to go. You hear her going on about wanting to find at least one cute guy, which drinks she’ll be devouring, toying with the idea of using a fake name with guys, but you’re too focused on finding cash for cover to get in. 

“Fuck- I’m sorry, I don’t mean to cut you off, but do you have cash to get in? I completely forgot to grab some. Oh, but I managed to remember to bring a condom in case of anything. Doubtful, but prepared,” you say and you can see the taxi driver look at you kind of surprised through his rearview mirror. 

“Oh yeah, no worries. So, you’re going to be on the prowl tonight?”

“Hardly. Even when I say I will, I never do anything about it. Plus, I can never find a guy that’ll reciprocate the same energy I can give off. It’s a you and me night…unless we manage to get something and in that case, I’ll let you do your thing.” you two laugh and feel the car come to a halt. Marina hands the driver exact change and off you guys were to the bottom door of the bar. 

The line is short, thanking your lucky stars. Lines anywhere drove you insane, especially waiting to get into a bar. You were the kind of person to get to it when you arrived somewhere, but Marina had the patience of a saint. Patience for you was kind of a joke and maybe that had something to do with the fact that you transferred colleges for your last year to come live back home with your family. 

After checking the IDs and handing over the money, Marina and you were off to the races of getting the night started. Music was already going, the place slowly but surely filling up with people of all ages, mainly younger.  

“What can I get for you two?” The very tall, very cute bartender asked.

“Can we please get a dirty Shirley and a tequila soda with a splash of orange juice, double for both? Thank you!” you tell him. 

“You have to be one of the most polite people I’ve ever met when interacting with a bartender.”

“What about it? They have to deal with annoying, drunk people all the time. The worst being the drunk college students who never tip enough.”

“Oh and you think you fall outside of that?”

“Well, I’m not an annoying drunk and I tip well,” Marina laughs at your commentary, but it falls short when she sees a stranger making particular eye contact your way. She finds him quite handsome, but definitely not her cup of tea. He visibly looks older than them and she knows you aren’t afraid of a little bit of an age gap. 

“Now, don’t make it obvious, but there’s a guy across the bar staring right at you. Dark rimmed glasses, curly brown hair, black button down, rings too,” she whispers in your ear. After handing the bartender your card, you casually look over at him and you can feel his gaze burn right back at you. Shamelessly doing so, which for you felt surprising since attention like this doesn’t come your way too often when you make your appearances out. 

You couldn’t deny how drop dead handsome he was to you. Almost like he had the essence of a Greek God, his face trapped in the ancient statues that brighten up The MET. He was even tanned to the Gods, making his hazel eyes pop more under the lighting of the bar even from behind his glasses. 

The usual move for you when you get stared at like this is to look away and ignore it completely, sending the hint that you don’t give a shit. But this stranger in the night has a gravitational pull you’ve never encountered before. 

You just knew he was going to be irresistible if you two cross paths tonight. 

“Jesus Christ, stop the staring contest and go over to him!”

“Wha- no! Oh my God, no. I can’t.”

“Okay…then let's see what happens when you’re left all alone.” she saunters away to the girls bathroom to leave the bait for him to approach you. You saw at least three guys turn their heads when she made her way over and applauded her in your head. She was hot, you always reminded her. 

Out of the corner of your eye, you made out that the guy next to him patted Mr. Greek God on his shoulder and the blondie next to the friend playfully rolled her eyes. Huh, so he didn’t come alone, you thought to yourself. You fully look down into your drink, swirling around the ice with your straw. 

“You know, I saw the bartender have quite a heavy pour of tequila in that. I hope you know what you’re in for tonight,” your head whips to your left, coming face to face with the man who couldn’t keep his eyes off of you. 

“And what exactly am I in for?” a smile spreads wide on his face and a laugh finally escapes him. 

To answer your flirtatious question, he reaches out his hand in front of you. 

“I’m Ian.”

“I’m Y/N,” and you two finally introduce yourselves with a proper handshake. You can see his two friends talk close to each other from across the bar while keeping their eyes’ on you two. “Looks like we have an audience,” you guide your eyes over to them and Ian sheepishly laughs. 

“Yeah, uh, those are my colleagues. I apologize for them and their very obvious gossiping.”

You see Marina come out of the bathroom and stop dead in her tracks at the sight of him in front of you. She makes the decision to sit near where Ian was originally to keep an eye on you, for protective purposes. Also, of course she wants to see you succeed with this one if he isn’t a creep. 

“And now there’s a third. Isn’t that the girl you were with when you arrived?”

“Yeah, that’s my best friend. We’re having a girls night out- well, was having one.”

“Did I disrupt your plans?”

You look over at her and a devilish grin sits prettily on her face while she watches the interaction go down. 

“Not exactly. We’re the kind of people who let in unpredictability into our nights. More fun that way, ya know?” you smile at him and take another sip of your cocktail. He looks like he wants to give a remark, but would rather show you instead of letting words do all the work. 

“So like chaos theory?”

“Excuse me?” Ian proceeds to explain it the best way he can, then grabs your cup from your hand to use your beverage as his partner in his best flirting trick he’s ever used. 

Ellie and Alan widen their eyes, knowing exactly what he’s about to do. 

“That son of a bitch,” Ellie says humorously to Alan. Marina overhears and pins that comment for later to tell you. Strike 1, Marina thought to herself.

You put your hand out like a hieroglyphic, as Ian told you to do. The first droplet on your middle knuckle rolls backwards down your wrist and all you could think about were how hot he was and that the orange juice certainly will leave your hand a bit sticky. 

“Now which way do you think the next one will roll?”

“Let’s say the same way,” and Ian put the second droplet on the same knuckle, but it rolls forward. He does a fake surprise gasp.

“You see- uh tiny variations and the orientation of the hairs on your skin as well as imperfections in the skin-”

“Imperfections?” you say with a chuckle.

“Microscopic, no worries. They never repeat and very well affect the outcome. Now what does that sound like to you?” He says as he continues to gently rub the back of your hand. You could see his darken, golden, perfect skin up close and feel how soft it was against your’s. You wondered how those same hands would feel grabbing at your waist on the dancefloor that’s six feet away. 

You lean a bit closer to him and slowly spread a smirk on your lips. “Unpredictability.”

Naivety and you weren’t friends; you were nobody’s fool. But right now, being a fool felt like the best decision you could make that night. 

He grabs your drink yet again and keeps a hold of your hand as he brings you to the dancefloor. Surprised by his bold move, your first instinct was to yank back your hand and walk away, but he set the scene a little too good for you to turn down this role. 

“Whatcha look at this, I unexpectedly brought you here because I couldn’t help but want to dance with you,” he hands you back your drink and you stare at him with a bewildered look in your eye. “Now that’s chaos theory.”

The lights grew dimmer, more people filled the place, and you were already three drinks when Ian finally had the courage to put his hands on you. Ellie miraculously got Alan to dance and when he didn’t enjoy a particular song, Ellie and Marina ended up dancing with one another. 

Loose lips Sattler, a paleobotanist who rarely drinks, befriended Marina in the bathroom while you were giving Ian the attention he was pining for the minute he saw you walk through the door. Marina had questions, Ellie had the answers, and Marina wanted to drag you to a bathroom stall to tell you who exactly you were dealing with. 

You were too busy feeling relaxed and going with the flow of the night. Most nights out you were the one with the social anxiety, interactions with people feeling like a chore and not feeling to dancy. Having someone like Ian right behind you with actual good music to dance to, the night was young and yours for the taking. 

“I don’t mean to be crass, but fuck, you’re gorgeous.”

If he can geek out over his chaos theory, you are ready to use your knowledge as a flirtatious tool too.

“Cubitum eamus?” you say into his ear over the loud music.

“Yeah, sweetheart, that just sounds Greek to me.”

“It’s Latin.”

“What does it mean?” you pull your head back and smile into his eyes. Not a sexy sinister look, no no. One of innocence, one of that you could do no wrong. 

“Wanna find out?” You wink at him and walk over to Marina, who’s at the bar getting another drink for herself.

“There you are! Look, you’re never going to believe what I found out?”

“And you’re never going to believe what I have planned in the next thirty minutes. It’s looking like I’m not going home with you tonight. Before you say anything, this was my doing, not his. He’s not creepy, thank God and he’s smart. Like nerdy smart! It’s perfect," you say in your ecstatic state.

Marina was ready to just spill it all and give you no room to prepare what you were about to hear. But seeing you glow in a way she hasn’t seen in quite a while, she bit her tongue for the sake of you having your needed fun. 

“Please be safe. And you better tell me everything tomorrow!” You make your way back to Ian, but whatever high you managed to capture was turning sour by the second. 

Another girl was trying to dance with him and you couldn’t tell if he was trying to hold back from enjoying himself or rejecting her altogether. 

You could’ve been that girl to admit defeat and give up on the conquest that gave you butterflies when his hands found your hips while dancing. But why let yourself fail on a moment that comes your way so rarely?

Ian sees you walk back up to him and he slides from her smoothly to come face to face with you. 

“Did you find out what it means?”

“No! You’ve stumped me and I don’t get stumped, missy.” you laugh and make his ear lean closer to your lips. 

“If we can get out of here, I can show you a great example on a bed.”

Ian met his match. Someone to beat him at his own game. He was astonished with your forwardness and wasn’t sure if that was the liquid courage helping you out. Either way, game sees game and you two were ready to play each other. 

“Shall we?” he says to you with his hand out for you to take. Ian takes one last look at Ellie and Alan for the night, catching their eyes’ and winking with a smile. 

“Checkmate,” says Alan to Ellie. They watch in disbelief of you two making your way out of the bar and into the thick heat of the summer night. 

Kisses haven’t even been exchanged yet and here you are, being the one to ask to sleep with him. You played it cool inside, but were dying of shock when he happily agreed to go home with you. Not only was he notably older than you, but he wanted you. Not your best friend, not his colleague, not even the girl who was trying to dance with him when you stepped away. You were the object of all his desires for the night and you were willing to give right into them. 

He hauled a taxi with one good whistle. One hand in his mouth to make such a loud noise while the other held your hand. One of the cars waiting to bring someone home safely whips up in front of you two alongside the sidewalk. The moment you entered that vehicle, you knew what you were about to get yourself into. 

“How about we go back to my place? I don’t live too far from here, if that’s fine with you.”

“Sounds good to me,” and with that, the night just began for something you’ve never done before with a stranger in familiar territory.

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A/N: Part 2 is on the way :)

[heavenly-fae]

nsft alphabet - ian malcolm

ian malcolm x reader

warnings | smut, afab!reader, dom!ian

a/n | haiiii everyone !! been a while huh. life update. i started reading the berserk manga and im hooked, im so fixated on guts it’s not even funny anymore bc i will start writing for him. but um back to the ian post, yeah i started this when i was really fixated on him and only just now im finishing it bc i got distracted lmfao. i know most of yall followed me for jeff’s characters content but it might be while before i post about one of his characters again </3 i’ll always them tho :( as always enjoy reading !!!

A - aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

- like a gentleman, he would immediately start pampering you. asking you if you want water, cleaning you up, taking care of any marks are bruises he’s left on you. i feel like he’s definitely the type to loveee showers or baths together, would indulge you both in one to relax and take care of you.

B - body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

- on you - let’s be real. he’s an ass man. ass and legs specifically tbh…he’s the type to smack you ass as he’s walking by i swear !! adores and i mean adores when you wear short shorts or dresses/skirts. he enjoys sneaking up behind you and groping you, grinding into you. he’s never leaving you or your ass alone.

- on him - be fr. ian malcolm cannot pick a favorite thing about himself if everything is his favorite. ok, if i had to pick, i guess his hair, or hands. i feel like ian would have a 5-step hair care routine to keep his curls all nice and pretty.

C - cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

- inside. is this even a question. he has like 4 kids, i dont think ian knows the concept of pulling out. he especially likes watching it drip out of you. he’ll crawl between your legs and watch it while mumbling how good you are for him, how you’re gonna be such a beautiful family together. he can barely resist eating you out right after.

D - dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

- this is kinda self-indulgent for me. but um, i think he’s into the large age gap. it’s not even a secret, because when you call him daddy in that sweet little lilting voice, he can feel himself hard and thick in his pants. god, he wouldn’t even feel guilty about being with you when you're half his age because you’re just such a sweetheart for him <3

E - experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

- dr. malcolm has been around the block, we all know this. he’s a manwhore. but that does mean he knows how to please his partner. he’ll roll his hips, hitting that spongey little spot inside of you. lick his thumb before planting it on your clit to rub quick figure eights, which have your thighs shaking and his name falling off your tongue like a prayer. whisper dirty things in your ear while kissing you all sloppily. he knows how to fuck.

F - fave position (this goes without saying)

- visual link (nsfw!) = 1 2

- doggy! honestly i feel like ian would love all positions just as long as you're feeling good. but, he cannot go wrong with doggy. he’ll press your chest down while taking you from behind, usually with his fingers in your mouth to pull you back and hold your jaw open. or he likes pressing his chest against your back. tucking his head into your neck, pressing his lips against your skin, and groaning when you reach an arm back to sink your fingers into his curls.

G - goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous?)

- ian is definitely playful, he will make a joking tease to pull a giggle from your lips. but he will also laugh at you and not with you, just to humiliate you just a bit. he’ll squish your tear-stained cheeks together and call you a crybaby, just to then laugh at you.

H - hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes?)

- if you're reading this you’ve most likely seen the first jurassic park. we all know the scene. this man has a bush and a happy trail let’s be fr. but he keeps it neat ! it’s not an unkempt bush !

I - intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

- ian definitely has the capacity to be intimate with you. to ~make love~ to you. he’s devoted as can be and it shows (even if sometimes he does want a quick fuck. elaboration later). ian loves keeping eye contact with you, whether it's through a mirror, while you're riding him, or in any other position that allows the two of you to be face to face. he loves watching the small ticks in your expression as he grinds his hips into yours, cock sinking into you at the most excruciatingly slow pace he's ever gone. loves the way your cheeks flush and your cunt squeezes him when he calls you his, "pretty baby."

J - jerk off (masturbation headcanon)

- hmm. honestly i don’t know. i feel like usually he doesn’t care enough to masturbate, especially if you’re nearby. however, say he’s on some seminar halfway across the world and he misses you, a little more than usual, he feels no shame in calling you and pulling out his rigid, leaking cock and fucking his hand to the sound of your pretty voice.

K - kinks (one or more of their kinks)

- teasing - ian adores making you beg for him, lingering touches that disappear too fast or too slow. a kiss that's too addicting and you need more. yet, he chuckles and makes you work for it. also goes hand in hand with edging you, he will delay your orgasm as long as he wants just to hear you whine for him.

- breeding - he wants to make you a single mother. no no, but he genuinely wants to raise a family together. that’s it. he doesn’t know what pulling out is as i said a few paragraphs ago. he loves marking you as his and fucking his cum deeper into you to make sure it takes.

L - location (favorite places to do the do)

- honestly anywhere. but not straight up in public yk. but he’s a risk taker, and i feel like he enjoys the thrill of getting caught. for some reason, i say he rlly rlly likes car sex specifically, you getting all riled up for him that you just end up riding him in the driver's seat or he bends you over in the backseat, yeah, he’s not mad at that idea at all.

M - motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

- your teasing. whether it be playful or sexual, it always riles ian up. it's one of the many things that he loves about you, your sense of humor. and also him knowing how much you want him, how your small, playful gestures toy with him until he breaks and takes you off to a private little space to fuck you stupid.

N - nope (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

- would never hurt you other than light slapping or spanking, or choking. he couldn’t bring himself to hurt you any more than that with your consent of course. you're his doll and he takes care of you :(

O - oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill)

- hmm i think he likes receiving and giving equally. sometimes he can be a little selfish, and yeah he does just want sum head lmfao. but he’s also a munch, he literally told me i swear !!

- receiving - he’s can’t help but loveee when his cock is buried down your throat. ian thinks it's adorable how your eyes water when trying to swallow his length down, gets a little more than just an ego boost. he also loves when it gets messy, watching as you stare up at him with tear-stained cheeks, your mouth and chin covered in spit and his cum.

- giving - ian loves the taste of you on his tongue, loves to overstimulate you, loves to control your orgasms, loves to hear you beg and roll your hips on his tongue. he could spend the rest of his life buried between your thighs, large hands gripping the fat of your hips to keep you still as your thighs quiver and your pussy pulses from being too sensitive.

P - pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual?)

- hard and deep. he’s not fast, nor is he particularly slow and sensual. on days when he is feeling romantic, he will take his sweet time with you, slow and deep strokes accompanied with tender kisses and whispers of praise. but on the usual, with the experience he has under his belt (haha), he’s found a perfect pace, of course, when he’s close,e he barely pulls away from you and instead deeply grinds into you, hitting that sweet spot inside you.

Q - quickies (their opinions on quickies, how often?)

- oh yes. he never says no to a quickie. he’s usually the one who initiates it anyway. lovess a quickie while in his office, shoving his papers aside to bend you over his desk and fuck you dumb. pressing the palm of his hand against your whining mouth to keep you quiet…..a very good stress reliever !

R - risky (are they game to experiment? do they take risks?)

- very very open minded. it would be you bringing up experimenting and then him saying that he’s always thought about it lmfao. he’s down for anything! though he would say no to having a third in the bedroom. he wants to be the only one making you feel good.

S - stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

- has the average stamina of a 40 year old man. which is like what 1 or maybeee 2 rounds if you're lucky. however even if he’s spent, he can always pleasure you in other ways if you're still reeling wink wink nudge nudge.

T - toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

- oh yeah! i think he’d have so much fun with toys in the bedroom, he himself would probably own like rope or blindfolds, nothing more than that (maybe a small bullet vibrator that he can control hehe) he likes to use toys mostly on you but if your feeling up to it he’s always willing to have them used on him <33

U - unfair (how much they like to tease)

- such a tease (looks at the letter K). but im not mad to elaborate on this at all though bc i want him to tease me so bad its not even funny. whether it be with overstimulation, ruining your orgasms, or even having you beg him to let you cum. ian revels in seeing your eyes water and your lips pout. god especially if you’re being particularly bratty he does not let you cum until he’s pushed you to edge multiple times <3 also also !! just mentioning that he also enjoys being teased as well <33

V - vocal (how loud are they, what noises do they make)

- he’s a talker. hands down. he most definitely curses when he's moaning as well, drawn out “fucks” and at when your pussy squeezes him tight, he'll say. "fuck, dollface, your cunt was made for me”. top pet names are any variation of doll, sweetheart, and of course baby <3 he’ll mutter out praise and degradation that gets even worse when he gets close. ian begins to babble on his words breaking with moans becoming less coherent, but he still forces them out as fast as he possibly can, until he's stuttering out groan of your name while spilling his cum deep inside you.

W - wild card (random headcanon for the character)

- hes into anal. this might just be me being self indulgent but he craves the feeling of his cock nestled deep in your tight ass. ian fucks you into the mattress, your tummy pressed down onto the bed with the weight of his body as he fucks your tight hole and all you can do is lay there and take every last inch of him <3333

X - x-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

- he’s well adjusted and he knows it. it’s a reasonable length, and he's on the thicker side. it’s a slightly darker tan with his tip leaning more red. when hes hard, it curls upward a bit towards his belly button.

Y - yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

- he may be 40 but that doesn’t stop him from being horny !! but honestly he will always follow your lead, if you have high or low sex drive he’ll always match your energy.

Z - zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

- if anything, a good session clears his head and calms him down. he usually ends up just reading at your side. on days when he’s real tired, he’ll lay there, holding you close and running his hands along your back and then further. he'll drift off to the sound of your slow breathing and the steady rhythm of your heart.

[radbelinda]

OK let's do it.

I've been directed to this Substack piece about Sabrina Carpenter's album cover too many times and I need to just debunk it.

It doesn't matter what SC thinks about kneeling for a man. The author is dead and the image is the image.

I know this is just a silly joke, but just to be clear...wanting female artists not to have misogynistic photoshoots does not mean there's no scope for irony, artistry, playfulness, satire. But satire requires that you be satirical, not just evoke a misogynistic dynamic and claim it's satire because it's different to what you usually make. (Like the author of this article, I have no familiarity with Sabrina Carpenter's oeuvre other than what I've heard secondhand.)

Unfortunately, the first paragraph suffers from the opposite problem of 'school of literalism'. The idea that we can't say what an image is conveying unless we have a commentary from the creator is just as pernicious a form of media illiteracy. It denies the actual power and function of images.

This is fascinating because the writer has just told us that she can't say exactly what SC is conveying in the album cover because of not having SC's own intent explained. So...what subtext are you reading? Her other work? That's not subtext, it's context. Where in the Sabrina Carpenter image is the subtext - the equivalent of the lingering looks and cheeky comments - that prevents us from taking it as a standard-issue misogynistic situation?

Examples of actual subtext to demonstrate that it's a 'playful jab' at the dehumanisation of women would be if she were: 1) looking grumpy or irritable - 2) checking her watch, looking at her phone, or playing cards - 3) wearing a hazmat suit - 4) holding a tiny grenade in the hand she's reaching up. None of these are particularly subtle, sure, but that's because it's such an extreme image of sexualised misogyny that you have to be pretty obvious in order to pull it back enough to claim that it's the opposite of what it is, that it's rejecting the thing it's embodying.

I spent some time considering whether I'd be okay with the same image if the back cover of the album were a picture of her walking a load of men like dogs, or if the album's title was 'Fuck this noise' instead of 'Man's Best Friend'. I think both of those choices would show a much clearer intent towards satire. But I also don't think they would overpower the original image. The image can be reproduced, alone, without any of that context. To quote Susan Sontag: 'Images transfix. Images anaesthetise.' (This is what I also thought of when a friend of mine said she didn't find Chappell Roan dressing as a blow-up doll to be shocking. Images anaesthetise.)

But to get back to the point: suggesting Sabrina Carpenter's album cover is playfully subverting men's dehumanisation of women isn't the equivalent of pointing out lingering looks that direct us to knowing two characters are together. It's the equivalent of telling us that Alan Grant and Ian Malcolm are sleeping together, when there's no evidence to suggest that in the work itself, and then citing Jeff Goldblum's portrayal of a gay character in a film in the 80s as to why we should read it this way.

Firstly - I think what's instructive is to ask, for the people who insist that it's very clearly a playful jab - what would need to change about the SC album cover in order for it to be a bog-standard misogynistic image? Or are these people seriously arguing that the only thing wrong with this image:

...is the tagline? That absent any of that, there would be readable subtext in this to interpret it satirically? That if Sabrina Carpenter stepped into a time machine and was the model for this advert, it'd automatically stop being sexist because of her other work?

Or that we wouldn't have found the video of Blurred Lines so misogynistic if it had been directed by a - wait it WAS directed by a woman, who made exactly the same excuses as come up here!

"I wanted to deal with the misogynist, funny lyrics in a way where the girls were going to overpower the men. Look at Emily Ratajkowski's performance; it's very, very funny and subtly ridiculing. That's what is fresh to me. It also forces the men to feel playful and not at all like predators. I directed the girls to look into the camera, this is very intentional and they do it most of the time; they are in the power position."

She's actually made more of an argument for it than anyone's made for the Man's Best Friend cover - and yet, somehow, in those halcyon days, we were able to still go 'nah' and see the end product for what it was.

To touch at depiction and endorsement, I'd like to go to Francis Ford Coppola on Apocalypse Now:

I'm not saying that I necessarily agree with this completely. I love Apocalypse Now and I'd argue that it tries really, really, really hard to be an anti-war movie. A lot harder than the SC cover tries to be anti-misogyny. But I think Coppola shows a humility here about the limitations of what he was able to achieve with the kind of film he wanted to make.

Everyone wants to be sexy - but no one wants to make a pro-misogyny album cover, everyone wants to make an anti-misogyny album cover - but everyone still wants to be sexy. The problem is that having your cake and eating it too in one image is a tall order, and we're in this weird place where a female artist being hypersexual is automatically taken as not just good but authentic in every instance, and in need of protection in case anyone suggests it might be regressive in some way. It's as though sex-saturated imagery by female artists is some kind of endangered species, rather than a cultural default and incentive that aggressively reasserts and reproduces itself. You could say 'it insists on itself'.

No. No one is assuming Sabrina Carpenter is anti-feminist just because she's sexy. People are arguing that the cover image is misogynistic, because it depicts a sexualised vision of a dehumanised woman.

I'd also argue there's a rhetorical sleight of hand going on here between a woman 'being sexy' - which is, like being regarded as 'beautiful' by a culture, something that's mostly down to the genetic lottery and a particular kind of personal charisma (and therefore seems particularly dumb to seethe about) - and a woman being publicly sexualised, which is a choice being made by someone (be it herself, a manager, a photographer, a public), and so it's fairer to discuss the machinations going on behind such a choice.

There are also some extra points in the comments:

The only way I can make sense of this is that the author thinks all sexualised women in the public eye are in complete auteur-level control of their own public image. To talk about Britney's image as '*her* overtly sexual media' is pretty intense. I know that they tried to tell us that she was the one who wanted to be a naughty Catholic schoolgirl in '...Baby One More Time', but I didn't buy that when I was seven and I don't buy it now. Despite young women and little girls being her target market, Britney Spears' music and public persona was courting the male gaze, it was male-centric in a very meaningful way, and that's why men were so preoccupied with her virginity. Despite being ten years old and the target market for 'I'm a Slave 4 U', I remember feeling deeply discomfited by the title and song, precisely because I could tell that it wasn't actually for me. It was being marketed to me, but it wasn't about anything I was interested in or that was relevant to my life. It was training performance for the male gaze. The same year, I went onto the iMDb boards for her film 'Crossroads' and saw men talking about how many scenes she's in her underwear for. And didn't we, like, all agree a while ago how completely deranged and unsettling it was for her to be portrayed on the cover of Rolling Stone in her underwear clutching a Tellytubby? Because that image was using her to evoke the frisson of taboo that is eroticising youth, and doubly sexualising and infantilising her, and was not actually an authentic portrayal of her or any woman's sexuality?

'Shamed for wanting a sugar daddy' I can't even touch. I'm done.

[raz-writes-the-thing]

Unpredictable // Chapter One

Ian Malcolm x Original Female Character / masterlist

Chapter Summary: Lyanna Grant, niece to Alan Grant finds herself working on her uncle's latest dig site.

Unpredictable Tag List: (send an ask to be added to a tag list!)

Palaeontology. It was not an occupation that was extremely popular these days. However, it's always been what Lyanna wanted to do. Ever since she was young and visited the local museum for the first time. She must have been around eight. Her uncle had waited until she was old enough to remember the shock and awe of the things on display. Lyanna could remember gazing up at the razor-sharp teeth jutting out of the jaw of the tyrannosaurus skeleton and she knew. She just knew. This was it for her. Nothing could ever even come close.

 

Since that oh-so-fateful day, Lyanna became obsessed with the flora and fauna of the past. She read every book she could find, read every article, and found every fact. She collected figures and fossils and studied the subject furiously. It paid off well considering where she was at now, she supposed. 

Lyanna was now one of the most well-known palaeontologists in the modern world... although she suspected that part of her reputation may have some due credit to her being the niece of Alan Grant, a professor and world-famous palaeontologist himself. They’d both written a book. His about the evolution of the dinosaurs and hers about the different types of creatures from different eras throughout the prehistoric periods and how ecological changes then impacted the way the animals evolved in turn. 

Only a few years ago, Lyanna had finally gotten her Ph.D. certifications in palaeontology and had right off the bat found herself out in the field helping her uncle dig up dinosaurs. Sure, it could be considered mild nepotism but it was great working with family because she didn't feel so alone when she started working in Montana with him. It was a huge leap for her career not having to start at the very bottom of the palaeontological food chain. Alan made sure that the transition was as comfortable as possible. Lyanna really couldn't have asked for a better uncle slash boss...

"You alright there?" Dylan asked, breaking her from her thoughts and redirecting her attention to the task at hand. 

"Yeah," she replied wistfully. "Sorry, I was just thinking." Dylan was another graduate from Lyanna’s class. Alan had picked him up too when she’d graduated, claiming that new blood would be good for the digs. And it had been, given that they had a pretty constant trickle and turnover of volunteers as they grew bored with the heat and the sand.

"About what?" He asked curiously, fingering the dust out of a fossilised eye socket. 

"Just about how lucky I am," Lyanna replied with a small smile. She really was, and because she was self-aware about it, it made it easier to appreciate just how far she’d come in such a short time.

Dylan snorted and returned to the work at hand. They were currently excavating the skeleton of a Velociraptor. Lyanna was brushing away the few stray sands that were still on the pelvic bone of the creature. 

"You know, I'd hate to meet a raptor on a dark Friday night. Look at those teeth- they’d shred through you like a mandolin,” he winced, glancing up at Lyanna quickly.

"Yeah, I completely agree. It would be terrifying. Thankfully, a giant meteor crashed into the earth and prevented that, hey?" She laughed, pleased with her joke. Dylan chuckled and shook his head in mock irritation. “Though it wouldn’t necessarily shred you. See-” Lyanna ran a finger over the teeth worn through with time. 

“They’re built to grip and tear the flesh from the bones, so it would be more like…” Lyanna searched for some kind of analogy that would make more sense. “Getting stuck in a bear trap. You’re not going to be able to get out of it without ripping half of your leg off unless you unlatch the jaws.” 

"Doctor Grant? We're ready to try again." Lyanna heard the voice say from across the site. She clutched at her hat as a gust of dry wind tried to blow it away. 

"I'm going to go check this out, okay?" She said to Dylan while standing up and brushing herself off. He nodded distractedly and kept working. It wouldn’t be long now until they’d be able to get the bones out and shipped off for analysis and study. 

Glancing one more time at the partially exhumed skeleton, Lyanna stepped out from under the cover and immediately felt the beating hot Montana sun on her back. If she wasn’t sweating before, she certainly was now. 

During her short time working with her uncle, Lyanna had acquired a golden tan that covered most of her body except the parts of herself that were shielded by her clothes. It was almost like she wore tan gloves and thigh-highs. It was a good thing she didn’t get about much without a longer-sleeved shirt or shorts on. Lyanna made a mental note to try and get the rest of herself tanned up the next time she hit town. 

Before she came to the desert wasteland that she now called home, Lyanna was quite pale. Many of her friends constantly joked about how she was probably a vampire because of the paleness of her skin and because of how she spent most of her nights studying deep into the early hours of the morning. That was, of course, before she made it out to Montana and was dead asleep by ten in the evening most nights from all the hot sun and hard labour during the day. 

Lyanna started jogging when she felt and heard the soft lead pellet enter the ground over by the scanner tent. She wanted to see how the new technology worked, given that this was likely the future of archaeology and she’d need to know if she hoped to run her own digs someday.

She reached the area just in time for an image of a Velociraptor to pop up on the computer screen. Damn. She missed it. There was always next time, she supposed. 

"This new program is incredible. A few more years of development, and we won't even have to dig anymore," Danny, working at the computer said. Lyanna did not miss the tone of barely contained glee in his voice.

"I hope not," Lyanna spoke, making her presence known to the group gathered around the computer. “I only just joined this circus.” 

“Absolutely,” Alan turned around and grinned at her knowingly. “Where’s the fun in that?”

"It looks in good shape," Lyanna said, gesturing to the image on the screen and leaning in for a better look.

"Chip off the old block you are,” Alan smiled slyly, quiet pride shining through his features. “Yes, it looks about five maybe six feet high. I'm guessing about nine feet long," he reached up and accidentally touched the screen, making the image distort and flicker.

"What'd you do?" He asked Danny, pursing his lips disdainfully.

"You touched it. Dr Grant isn't machine-compatible," Ellie said with a laugh. Lyanna nudged at her shoulder and tried to contain her laughter. If there was one thing Alan hated above all else- it was technology. 

While Ellie wasn’t a blood relative, Lyanna still considered Ellie her aunt. She basically was her second mother, considering how she’d been around since Lyanna was quite young. She’d taken her on and supported Lyanna when she needed it, and was a huge source of motivation for her to finish her studies when she’d struggled and hit hiccups along the way.

"Hell, they've got it in for me," Alan added in agreement, touching the top of the makeshift dust shield over the monitor screen.

The image corrected itself and Alan continued assessing the skeleton.

"Look at this," he said, turning to the group of volunteers behind him. "It's no wonder these guys learned how to fly." The group chuckled, not seeing the similarities between the two types of skeletons. It wasn’t a popular opinion shared amongst the scientific community, but knowing Alan as she did, Lyanna knew he wasn’t likely to soon give up on proving it. 

"No seriously,” Lyanna piped up, “he's right. Do you see the pubic bone, turned backwards like a bird?" She asked, backing him up.

"It's true. Dinosaurs have more in common with modern-day birds than they do with reptiles," Alan bounced off her comment, turning to face the group. Ah, here is where they got the scientific benefits from their volunteering.

"Look at the vertebrae, full of air sacs and hollows, just like a bird's and even the word "raptor" means ‘bird of prey’." 

Lyanna could see that Alan was going to get into one of his infamous rants, and she noticed a couple of volunteers back up a step as if to wander off and do something else. 

"That doesn't look very scary. More like a six-foot turkey," they heard a kid's voice from the back of the group call out. Lyanna sighed before rubbing the sand and sweat from her forehead. This was the downside to having volunteers. She would be lying, however, if Lyanna said she didn’t laugh after seeing Alan's reaction.

"Here we go,” Ellie chuckled, knowing what was about to happen.

 

"Okay then, imagine yourself in the Cretaceous period," Alan began, walking forward and fishing out his raptor claw that he had acquired back on his first-ever dig right out of university. Lyanna could remember many days in his study when he was home between digs fiddling with it and imagining the beast that used to be connected to it. She considered it an heirloom and secretly hoped that Alan did, too. 

"You get your first look at this ‘six-foot turkey’. He moves like a bird, lightly bobbing his head.” Alan moved slowly towards the kid, Johnny, Lyanna thought his name was. “You keep still because you think that maybe his visual acuity is based on movement like a T-Rex and he'll lose you if you don't move.” He shook his hand, imitating movement. 

"But no," he paused, "not Velociraptor. You stare at him and he just stares right back." By this point, all of the volunteers and workers were captivated by Alan's words, hasty escapes forgotten. Lyanna was too, to be honest. But then again, she’d been enraptured by Alan’s words since she’d been a tot, so it wasn’t all that different to usual.

"And that's when the attack comes," he raised his hands, bringing his two pointer fingers up side by side to show that raptors didn't hunt by themselves. "Not from the front, but from the sides. From the other two raptors you didn't even know were there," he and Lyanna both smirked. Alan stood up straight.

"Because Velociraptors are pack hunters... they use coordinated attack patterns and he attacks you with this," he raised the claw to show Johnny, whose eyes widened comically.

"A six-inch retractable claw, like a razor, on the middle toe," Alan placed the claw between his index and middle finger, showing him where the claw would have been situated. "He doesn't bite your jugular like a lion, no. He slashes at you here or here," he said, raking the claw along different places of the kid's torso.

"Or maybe your belly. Spilling your intestines," he then smiled, crouching down again so that his eyes were level with Johnny’s. "The point is... you are alive when they start to eat you," he grins, satisfied with the reaction he had elicited.

Even Lyanna thought he might have gone a little far. 

Johnny nods and hurries off. Alan turned and chuckled after seeing the look on Ellie's face. She didn’t look particularly impressed, but she also looked amused, so Alan must have known he wasn’t in too much trouble.

"Johnny is probably going to have nightmares now, Alan," Lyanna snorted, crossing her arms playfully. 

"There's nothing to be afraid of. They've been dead for 65 million years," he said factually. 

"It's the power of the imagination," she responded, tapping the side of his head. He smiled down at her and patted her shoulder affectionately.

The three of them started walking up the hill that separated them from the rest of the camp.

"You know, if you wanted to scare the kid you could have pulled a gun on him," Ellie laughed, pulling the brim of her bucket hat down to shield her face from the beating sun.

"Yeah, I know. I can't believe you want to have one of those," Alan replied, gesturing back towards the scanner area where the volunteers were wheeling the new equipment out of the sun.

"I don't think she wants that particular kid," Lyanna laughed, wiping another layer of sweat from her forehead.

"Exactly. I mean, a breed of child would be intriguing. What's so wrong with kids?" Ellie asked, squinting at Alan. 

"Oh Ellie... they're noisy, they're messy, they're expensive," Alan listed, trekking up the sand dune.

Ellie and Lyanna both laughed but she could see where he was coming from. Life was becoming more expensive by the day. One or two probably wouldn’t break the average person’s bank, though. 

"They smell," Alan added after a second of consideration.

"They do not smell!" Ellie laughed, shaking her head at the audacity.

"Babies smell," he reasoned, pointing an accusatory finger at her. He had her there, Lyanna supposed. 

Before Ellie could answer, there was a loud rumbling coming from the sky.

"Is that a chopper?" Lyanna asked, shielding her eyes from the bright midday sun. 

"We aren’t due for another inspection,” Alan replied just as the black machine came into view. Then he thought about it for another moment. “Are we?”

"I don't know but let's find out,” Lyanna thought out loud as the chopper started to come down towards the ground. And not on the dedicated landing strip either, she noticed.

“Oh shit,” she exclaimed suddenly, bolting into motion. “The dig!”

[jsaunderswrites]

Watching Jurassic World Dominion, hoping for it to be less bad than the others but ready for it to be the worst.

My various opinions pro and con:

Pros:

The cretaceous prologue was cool, if not entirely accurate.

Seeing dinos in the wider world is cool, the found footage in the newsreel is all reused from Battle at Big Rock but still rocks.

Poachers and breeding mills make perfect sense in this kind of world.

The apatosaurus at the lumber yard was kinda magical.

I never gave a shit about Blue, but dinosaurs building nests in the detritus of human industry is soooo cool!

Neil and Dean IMMEDIATELY have so much better chemistry than Pratt and Howard, it's night and day.

I wanna pet the baby dino too!

Grant being unhappy to learn the T. rex is at the sanctuary, and sarcastically deriding Malcolm's personality are references that feel organic, not forced.

Turning Henry Wu into a supervillain was stupid, so I'm glad they're backtracking that.

Okay Ramsay is cool!

Grant catching Malcolm was a nice moment, should've been built up to more, imagine a version of the movie where they're rocky relationship is the emotional throughline instead of Maisie's clone mum. But it was still nice.

Ian gives shitty directions.

Rexy framed in the water feature was cute.

I hope Rexy (being a very old gal at this point) gets to enjoy her new family in her last years. Apparently they're now theorising that tyrannosaurus was a social hunter too!

Cool shots of dinos in the world.

Cons:

The T. rex's appearance at the drive-in was filled with people acting pointlessly stupid for no reason. Why weren't they watching a monster movie so them assuming the screams and roars were from that, instead of an ad for the snack bar?

Owen is still in these movies.

The newsreel brings up Maisie for absolutely no reason as there was no connection to the topic she was discussing, it's just for bad exposition.

I am soooo sick of the clone question in fiction. DNA isn't your identity, identical twins and even natural clones already exist. It's a quirk, not a sign you're not "real". Stop whining about it already.

They got through literally 8 words of trying to be nice, and immediately went "Ew, sincerity? Gross! Better cover that up with a joke before people start to think our characters have souls!"

Maybe it's just me but I think hiding your child from the world is waaaay more suspicious than her sharing the face of a woman who died decades ago that no one has ever heard of. If I were a perfect clone of some 80s guy how would anyone who met me ever learn that?

Owen has a psychic raptor sense? What was that shot after Blue attacked the hunters trying to communicate?

Ellie shows up in the exact pink top and dramatically removes her sunglasses the same way as in '93. Did they think they were being too subtle?

Teenagers and phones jokes, gotta play to the septuagenarian crowd. And why is he giving a presentation to just two teenage girls who didn't care?

Owen being able to talk to Blue always feels unjustified, I bet when our ancestors were first domesticating wolves they had big sticks for when they didn't listen.

Hipster coffee jokes, the height of comedy is that young people suck.

The small feathery dinosaur does a chicken thing because we think it looks chicken like, despite all the therapods being just as genetically bird. Details like that pull me out of the film because you know they wouldn't have the velocoraptors or compys run around headless.

Claire sucks at investigating.

Owen's stupid hand thing isn't cool no matter how much they think it is.

Just interrogating a guy while he's being eaten, good guy things.

People just standing around watching while giant predators rampage behind them.

Every chase that relies on the heroes being faster and more agile than raptors feels so dumb.

Oh god two-person hand thing.

Evil smuggler lady signed up for a 1940s noire and doesn't know why no one is matching her lack of energy.

Raptor gets hit by a truck, no problem, because they aren't animals but super monsters.

The movie says "you the audience only care about what happens to Maisie, you have no concern for the people of Malta as they're eaten on screen. That's just fun spectacle."

In some movies having to jump a motorbike onto a plane before it lifts off would be cool, these movies have robbed me of the ability to enjoy that.

Owen shouting "ARE YOU HURT!?" at claire is the first sign he actually gives a shit about her, and it still feels douchey.

(looking back and seeing how long since I listed a pro, nothing in the Malta scenes!)

How are you cloning "pure" dinosaurs? The whole franchise is based around the idea you need to bridge the inevitable gaps!

Maisie's backstory is all retconned for more clone BS.

Figures miss "let's release all these incredibly dangerous creatures into society because I'm sad I share my genetic code with someone else" wouldn't care about stopping the apocalypse.

Quetzalcoatlus murders a plane because... <shrug>

That "I love you" felt fake, how are they so bad at being a couple?

Gotta make sure the new character is military like her parent, because what idiot would make a non-soldier hero!? I am so goddam sick of characters just having a military background for no fucking reason in movies, bring back unlikely heroes!

I'm sorry but I don't care about Maisie's mum and the movie is banking on me actually caring.

Genetic Power is a dumb term.

All the classic heroes met Rexy once and it changed cinema forever, Owen bumps into her every week and we couldn't care less!

There's no reason the bad guy had to be that random guy from JP1. That guy didn't read like evil Steve Jobs.

Dimetrodons do not read dangerous pack hunters to me.

Owen strangles a dilophosaurus because he is a Mary Sue. It's just to show how cool he is while undoing the actual threat of the scene.

When the chamber specifically built to contain and immolate the locusts fails without any kind of sabotage or outside interference. Because NOTHING just works.

And Ian just parks and suddenly they're teetering on the edge of a cliff!? Can't they put in reasons why things are going wrong!?

They try to parallel the old heroes with the new ones and I'm sorry but the old ones have actual fun personalities.

The LARGEST TERESTRIAL CARNIVORE OF ALL TIME eats single bug. Big scary entrance ruined.

Treverrow said the giganotosaurus is "like the joker" it's not in the movie but it's still stupid.

It's chasing them is so understated, where's the freaking music? It doesn't sound big at all!

Oh man this whole giganotosaurus sequence is so bad! So slow and clumsy!

Owen tries to explain how raptor training works, still doesn't work.

Ellie talking to Claire about regrets, why? What regrets is Ellie talking about?

Goddamit Maisie AND Grant double hand thing!? I do not like this movie!

The computers reboot and the bugs come back to life, so the scene communicates that the bugs were rebooted.

Dodgson getting Nedry'd to the extent of LITTERALY HAVING THE SHAVING CREAM. And the cream has no purpose in this film, it's ONLY a blatant reference.

From the dumbass motherhood stuff in World to the obsession with Maisie's biological mum in this, these movies have an incredibly basic and bland view on parenthood. (Goldilocks > Maisie Lockwood)

"It's always him!" Except those times it wasn't, including YOUR OWN movie!

At the start the giganotosaurus killed the T. rex, later they mention there can't be two alpha predators, and now they're fighting. But unlike HtTYD2 that alpha stuff has nothing to do with the rest of the film, so this "rivalry" feels meaningless.

Genetic dino memory.

Why should I care that giga is dead? The humans had already escaped, the fight was meaningless.

Every relationship that is being wrapped up in this ending wasn't built up adequately, Grant an Ellie were ready to get back together in scene one and Maisie ONLY sees that Owen and Claire come to find her and immediately gets over her mummy issues.

Kayla was such a nothing addition to the movie. I don't know why she's here.

"Life has existed for hundreds of millions of years" and "life existed 65 million years ago" dude life has existed for BILLIONS of years! Dinosaurs are our next door neighbours on the ocean of time!

The ending speech is about coexistence, unlike the entire rest of the film.

Neutral:

Atrociraptor is so fake sounding when I saw the toys I thought they would be the new hybrid dinos, not just an actual name some palaeontologists came up with. Honestly, that makes me chuckle.

Howard is shot weirdly, I looked up if she was pregnant during this film because I feel like she's always either wearing heavier coverings or just has her torso blocked behind something. (specifically I am about 1 1/4 hours in) Apparently she was dealing with weight shaming behind the scenes, I don't know if that has anything to do with it though.

So this is the Jurassic Park III; Alan Grant is asked to travel to a location full of free range dinos, and they're searching for a missing kid.

The gate code should've just been 1234 because no one bothered to change it from default.

Final opinion:

Probably the least bad of the three Jurassic Worlds, still an utter mess made up of disparate moments and meaningless speeches that do not add up to any thesis.

I hope Edwards' Jurassic Park 7 is ANYTHING of value, despite not caring for his Godzilla or Rogue One.

Now to get back to Camp Cretaceous.

[unoficialy-married-to-ace-austin]

Hello! Saw that you’re look for Ian Malcolm requests. Any era just reader admiring him with their kids. You can make it smut if you want but I’m not picky.

Domestic Bliss (Ian Malcolm x Reader)

An: You have no idea how happy I am to have gotten this request! I’m literally in love with this fucker. Also, this fic takes place right before Jurassic World Dominion. So, if you haven’t seen that don’t read this.

Summary: You have to admit, moving to the research center hadn’t been the worst idea

Warnings: SPOILERS FOR JURASSIC WORLD DOMINION!!

Taglist: @fiskers7136 @peachmango-kombucha @kcloveswrestling @bellalutionn @xkennyxomegax @tummyyellin @cuzimacomedian @auburnwrites @damnnhausen (I know you all are wrestling fans, but I’m a simp so you are all being tagged)

If you were honest, you didn’t think anything would take you near a Dinosaur voluntarily again. Your biggest regret was helping create the damn things years ago, and they had almost killed you multiple times. When Jurassic World opened you had openly criticized it, and when the debate on if they should be protected came up you were strongly for letting them die.

And yet, you round yourself living at another research facility for the beasts. This time you had simply brought your two children, David who was 4 and Ell who was a year.

When Ian first brought up the idea of going you had shut it down immediately. You didn’t care how advance the security system was, you had thought you were safe once too and you didn’t want your kids in danger. But over time he wore you down, just like he always did when he wanted something. Eventually you agreed to go, so your family packed up and made the move.

You didn’t want to admit it, but the moment you saw a dinosaur again you felt like you were seeing them for the first time all over again.

As soon as you landed the owner of InGen greeted you, and showed you where you would be living for the foreseeable future.

“ stegosaurus”

“Very good. And what do they eat?”

“Plants.” You watched from the couch as Ian held up one of the toy dinosaurs up to David.

“And this one?” He held up another, continuing to quiz the young child. Ell, who was learning to walk and using him as a stabilizer, leaned forward, trying to grab one of the toys.

“You want one too?” Ian lifted her to sit in his lap, and once she could reach she quickly grabbed the t-Rex and brought it to his mouth.

“Ell, you can’t eat the y-Rex! He’s the big one!” David exclaimed.

“I wouldn’t say the big one.” You cut in, sliding down to sit next to your husband. “Technically the ‘big one’ would be the brontosaurus. The t-Rex is just the meanest.” You explained.

“But Ell still can’t eat him!” He whined. Ell, as though knowing her brother was making fun of her, stoped chewing on the toy and threw it to the ground. “Here Ell, you be the Stegosaurus and I’ll be the triceratops. Then we can fight.”

“I’ve taught you nothing!” You threw your arms up as you’d stood, making Ian laugh at you. ”oh shush.” You lightly kicked him as you walked over to the small kitchen.

“Hey!” He set Ell on the ground and stood up, walking over to where you were.

“Tea?” You asked, turning to make some once he nodded. “When is your next lecture?”

“I don’t have any for the rest of today or tomorrow.” He told you, letting his hand run through his hair. As much as you missed the brown curls you had loved so much, you definitely liked the slicked back gray look.

“You know, I wonder what people would say if they saw the sarcastic asshole known as Dr. Malcolm playing dinosaurs on the floor with a 4 year old.” You chuckled, handing him is cup of tea before sitting next to him at the kitchen bar.

“I think we could give Grant a good heart attack.” You smiled at his joke, but looked down at the liquid in your cup.

“Hey, thank you.” You turned to give him a questioning look. “You didn’t want to come here, yet you did. I know you never wanted to see one again, so thank you.” He admitted. You always treasured these moments with Ian. Even though you had been married for years he wasn’t the type to be serious.

“I have to admit it hasn’t been all that bad. I think we’ve spent more time all together since coming here, and the kids love it so much.” You explained. “But you owe me.” You pointed at him. He he leaned forward, pulling you into a kiss. It wasn’t super long, but it had the promise of something more behind it.

“Baby, I think I have just the idea on how to pay you back.” He winked at you, but before he could kiss you again the door to your apartment opened.

“Dr. Malcolm?” You both turned to see a man standing in your door way.

“A bit busy Ramsay.” He tried dismissing the boy, but he didn’t leave.

“I really need to talk to you.”

“And I’m about to have sex with my wife. Your point.” You lightly slapped Ian, slightly embarrassed by his words.

“It’s about the lotus.” Ian final pulled away and looked over at him.

“Fine,” he stood and gave you another quick kiss. “Be back to finish in a bit.”

[ssadumba55]

Love Finds A Way (Ian Malcolm X Reader)

Request: Hello!! I love your Ian malcolm x reader so far and I was just wondering if you could do another one (either set in the first or second movie) where ian and the reader get separated and it freaks Ian out until they find each other again and ian decides to confess his feelings maybe? Thanks!

A/N: Let's go! I've never written anything set in the first movie but that movie moves a lot faster so forgive me cutting through to get to the good bits. I spared you every dinosaur chase scene, you're welcome. Enjoy!

This trip was a mistake, you realized that now covered in mud and sitting in a tree.

Come along, Ian had suggested, it’ll be fun. It wasn’t fun now, you’d be sure to remind him of that… if you ever saw him again. Even though you had wanted to stay behind with Ian, Alan had convinced you to join him and the kids.

Now, the other three were getting some shuteye. How they could sleep with all of this around them, you would never know. You watched the Brachiosaurs eat from the safety of your vantage point. All the joy and wonder you had felt earlier on the tour was now gone, replaced with a feeling of dread deep in the pit of your stomach.

There was no way you were getting out of this alive, even with the help of the amazing Dr. Alan Grant. You had never been a fearless fighter or particularly intelligent.

“You’re still awake?” Dr. Grant asked softly. You had thought he was asleep but it appeared he’d just been resting eyes. He didn’t even look like the man you’d met earlier that day, each of his arms wrapped around one of the children he had despised.

You shrugged your shoulders. “I’m worried about Dr. Malcolm, that’s all.”

It was a fair worry, he was your friend and mentor. The two of you had spent a lot of time together both in the workplace and out. You liked to think there was an inseparable bond between the two of you, something that rarely anyone else had. No matter how many wives or girlfriends he went through, what was between you both would never change.

“He’s fine. As long as he stays still, even if the T. Rex circles back, he’ll live.”

Realistically, you knew he was right but still. Nobody but the four of you knew where he was and you had no idea how to get to the others. Worst vacation ever, Ian owed you one if the two of you got off this stinking island alive.

Meanwhile, Dr. Ian Malcolm was in a panic himself. His leg was in pain, but it was dull compared to his worry for you. Now that he wasn’t being chased by a giant meat eating dinosaur, he could think properly and he had noticed your absence.

There were two options; you were laying out there dead somewhere (which he hated to think about, that couldn’t be the one) or you were wherever Dr. Grant and Hammond’s grandchildren were.

“We should be out there looking for them,” he tried to shift but his leg was in worse shape than he thought. Ellie hurried forward, scolding him for moving and putting himself in pain. She was obviously worried for Alan as well, they had issues, the two of them.

Was being in love with a workplace friend a common occurrence because it seemed like they were in the exact same department and- Oh god, if you and Alan died they would never get to tell them. More importantly he would never get to tell you.

At some point, Gennaro and Ellie leave to go look for Arnold, leaving him and Hammond to guide them to where they needed to go. He tried to keep his head in the game as much as possible, his survival and the others depended on it but he was too worried about you.

This had to be some sick twisted joke the universe had decided to play on him, he didn’t tell the one he loved he loved them when he had the chance, he fooled around with so many people... and this was his sick and twisted comeuppance.

He supposed if that was what was going on he deserved it, but damn it if he didn’t wish his leg was better so he could be out there looking for you.

How many adults did it take to hold a door shut against one Velociraptor? Apparently, three. You, Alan and Ellie leaned against the door, trying your best to keep it shut while Lex and Tim figured out the computer system.

“This is where we die,” you muttered under your breath as Ellie tried desperately to reach for the shotgun that was just out of her grasp.

“You did it!” Tim shouted and just like that the locks were on the doors.

The relief was short lived, but such is life when you’re on a dinosaur infested island. The five of you escaped through the vents, making your way back to the main entrance of the visitors building. It was a race against time (and Velociraptors), but in the end, you all made it safely back to the ground and the T. Rex took care of the raptors.

“Come on,” Alan ushered the kids, you and Ellie out the front door. You felt like you were going to pass out just from the adrenaline. Hammond and Ian were waiting outside in the jeep but you couldn’t bring yourself to say anything to either of them as you climbed in. Alan said something but you leaned back in the jeep seat, releasing a breath you didn’t even know you’d been holding.

You weren’t home safe yet but it sure felt like it.

After that, everything was a blur. The helicopter ride home was silent, everyone contemplating everything they had just witnessed on the island. For once, even the great Ian Malcolm had nothing to say.

You leaned against him and he let you, clearly just as happy as you were to be in the same vicinity once again.

Upon landing in Costa Rica, the group went their separate ways. Hammond went off with his grandchildren, Ellie needed medical care and Alan went with her, Ian needed his own care so you went with him. You wondered if you’d ever get to see those people again. It was a strange thing to bond over, but you felt like you were all that much closer now that you’d been through this together.

Ian was out for a while so you pulled up a chair and slept beside the hospital bed.

“(Y/n)?” You awoke to someone saying your name, visions of giant lizard monsters danced in your vision for a few moments longer as you blinked awake.

You would surely be having nightmares of that for a long time.

Ian was awake, he had shifted himself into a sitting position, his hand on yours. You met his eyes, there was a lot that needed to be said. You wanted to tell him everything that had happened, with Alan and the kids and the raptors and-

You hugged him instead, it was strange, even though the two of you were fairly close, neither of you had ever been huge fans of physical contact.

He hugged you back though.

“That was the worst vacation ever…” You whispered, pulling away slightly to look into his eyes.

He chuckled. “Next time you can pick, no more dinosaur islands. I promise.”

You suddenly became aware of the very little space between the two of you. This was the closest the two of you had ever been in a non joking manner. It felt like being separated from each other on a dinosaur infested island had changed something in your dynamic, though you weren’t sure what it was. The smile on his face faded slightly and he reached up, closing the distance between the two of you, hand gently pressed to your cheek.

That’s what it was. The dynamic between you two had DEFINITELY changed.

“I’ve, uh, always wanted to do that.” He sounded slightly guilty, pulling away.

There were butterflies in your stomach and somehow the world seemed to be spinning. You laughed nervously, something about experiencing this so soon after a near death experience was hilarious to you.

"Funnily enough, me too," you admit, pressing your forehead to his. It's really too soon to know what this really means or if this is all just a crazy reaction to being separated and not able to see each other but you don't even care.

You could put a label on it later, he would agree. For now the two of you had each other and you were never letting go. And if Ian asked you to sleep with him later that night and if the two of you awoke each other from nightmares screaming only to comfort each other, nobody else needed to know.

You'd always had a special bond. This just made it stronger.

[shutupanddance]

#1 for Ian Malcom of your followers challenge?

“I’d agree with you, but then we’d both be wrong.”

Haha, this is perfect for him! Here you go love, and thanks for requesting!

You had no idea what an “insurance consultant” was for the park, but you knew you didn’t like the sound of it. And when you met the drama queen with his shirt half-open who happened to bear the title, you liked him even less.

You were Jurassic Park’s head of publicity, and you had no real power over what went on within the park, but that never stopped the guy ranting to you about his hatred of the place.

Ian Malcolm strolled into your office at an ungodly hour of the night. Hammond must have told him you were awake, and although you loved the old man, you were going to have some words about this later.

”Y/N,” the mathematician began, and you were already sighing in frustration, “what the hell is this?”

He cracked a rolled-up poster down on your desk. It was crisp and shiny, looked like it was new off the printers. You began to pull off the rubber band holding it together.

”Are these animals a joke to you?” he yelled.

What was this all about?

”As the director of publicity, Mx. Y/L/N, I‘d think you’d be smart enough to not commit corporate suicide, even if you don’t give a damn about the dinosaurs. Not only are you a horrible advertiser, but you’ve disrespected this feat of science and turned it into a party trick-”

The poster in question was a vintage Barnum & Bailey poster, with dinosaurs and the name “Jurassic Park” edited in. You interjected.

”I’m gonna have to stop you there. I’d agree with you, but then we’d both be wrong.”

Before he could blow another fuse, you held up the now-unraveled poster in front of him, an exasperated expression on your face.

”This poster is a joke, Ian. I made it because I was bored.” He froze, mouth still open. His head turned at a confused angle, and you let out a tired, disbelieving laugh. ”I was just making this for fun, you idiot. I would never advertise it like this.”

”It was… a joke?”

”Yes, I’ve said that already. You really think I want to equate this park to a circus? With all the abuse that circus animals go through? I want visitors to respect the dinos, not treat them like exhibits.”

He closed his mouth, swallowed, and had the decency to look a little guilty.

”Oh.”

He grabbed the poster off your desk, and shuffled to the door. Before you could return to your work, he leaned back into your office, his hand gripping the doorframe.

”I’m sorry,” he said, and you rolled your eyes.

“Don’t ever come into my office this late again.”

”I make no promises.”

His stupid smile.

[classic80sand90smovieloves2]

Meeting and Dating Ian Malcolm

(Not my gif)(Requested by anonymous)

(When I tell you I love this man.)

- You and Ian meet when you attend the same STEM related conference; though it would be more accurate to say that you met while you attended a conference that he was lecturing at. 

- Nevertheless, you were both in the same room and wound up interfacing before the meeting was over; an interaction that would lead to a very interesting and at times exasperating relationship. 

- You found him fascinating; just like pretty much everyone else in the crowd, someone who had a big, entertaining personality in a field that so often lacked personality. You liked him the minute he opened his mouth. 

- He, in turn, thought that you were gorgeous and found himself falling for you the minute he locked eyes on you. He was looking forward to the moment he could slink off stage and find a way to talk to you. He did so right after he finished his speech and the applause settled down.

- He artfully found his way through the crowd and managed to convince the person beside you to switch their seat, taking it for himself after the starry eyed boy got up. 

- The two of you sat in silence for a little while before he leaned over and introduced himself, shaking your hand for a lingering moment before you both turned your attention back to the stage. 

- Another beat of silence passed between you before he leaned over and murmured a funny comment to you, reveling in the way you tried to hold back your smile. You spent the rest of the meeting trying to stifle your laughter as your new ironic commentator continued his jokes and flirtation. It certainly made the conference more enjoyable. 

- Once the shows over and everyone begins to clear out, he asks if you’re doing anything before asking if you’d like to go out and grab a couple of drinks or talk someplace. 

- That's how you find yourself seated next to him at the bar of a nice little restaurant, listening to him explain the chaos theory in detail and trying your best to digest everything that he’s saying; along with your drinks. 

- Along with his mathematical explanations, he also provides a lot of compliments and flirtation. You spend the evening feeling like the most important and sought after woman in the world

- Since you could easily; and very accurately, consider that little get together to be your first date, let’s move on to your first kiss. 

- It’s a date or two later that the two of you share it. You don’t want to give in too easily; even if you want to kiss him a lot sooner, so you play coy until you cant take it any more and the moment feels perfectly right. 

- Perfectly right seems to mean the middle of your kitchen after you invited him in for some coffee but hey, to each their own. 

- Nevertheless, you’d invited him into your home after one of your dates and gone to your kitchen to get the two of you your drinks. He’d followed you in and when you handed him his cup of coffee, he’d leaned in, pressed his lips to yours and given you a soft kiss.

- When he pulled away, he smiled at you, raised his mug, and gave you a somewhat teasing thank you before he lead the way into your living room. 

- One mug lead to another and you've been staying up late with each other ever since. 

- Ian suffers from a deplorable need to constantly be touching you. On top of that, he really isn’t too preoccupied with how other people feel so Pda is very common and performed very shamelessly.

- His arm is usually wrapped around you in some way, whether it be draped across the back of your chair, wrapped around your shoulders, or haphazardly thrown in front of you while a T. Rex is charging towards you.

- Tight hugs; which usually means that you’re being somewhat picked up since he’s so goddamn tall.

- Having your hair played with; oftentimes while he uses his flirtation on you.

- Knee squeezes. His hand belongs to your knee whenever he can’t wrap his arm around you.

- He loves cheek kisses. He loves the sort of showing off feel of them whenever you’re in front of someone else; and he just loves how soft and sweet they are.

- Slow, passionate kisses.

- Oftentimes, you wind up sleeping in the crook of his arm; usually with your head resting against his chest. That being said, the two of you also just cuddle haphazardly, snuggling in any which way you can, your limbs entangled and your bodies relaxed.

- He tends to call you honey or baby but, considering the fact that he calls his daughter Queen, my goddess and my inspiration, there’s room for a few more over dramatic pet names in your relationship.

- Waking up together. Ian's a math professor so, depending on both your schedules, you’re usually getting up around the same time. Although, if you get up earlier than he has to, he’d definitely; somewhat begrudgingly, adapt to your schedule.

- The two of you are attached at the hip a lot of the time. If you choose to go somewhere, he’s bound to follow; whether that be to keep you safe or just because he enjoys spending time with you is anyone’s guess.

- Working on separate things while you’re together. Sometimes couples just want to be in the same room while they do their own thing and I think that’s beautiful.

- Going shopping together. He’s a fan of clothes shopping, groceries, not so much.

- He likes trying out new things and going to all those different places that pop up in town so the two of you visit a lot of new restaurants and shops.

- Going out to dinner at nice restaurants. He’s the Rockstar of the math community so of course he’d want to take you to a few high end places; whenever he could afford it that is.

- Traveling around the world together. Whenever he has to go somewhere, he likes taking you with him.

- Being in the crowds of his conferences and public appearances. You like cheering him on and he appreciates the fact that you’re always there for him; even if he doesn’t necessarily need the support.

- Ian isn’t the greatest at keeping his word and he can get really caught up in his work to the point where he forgets important things, but he does always try his best to make things up to you whenever he can.

- Becoming close with Kelly. She enjoys living with you when her mother can’t be bothered and Ian’s bogged down by work. He loves both his girls dearly so the fact that you get along with each other is very important to him.

- You get to use the fact that you’re with Kelly as an excuse to go do stupid and somewhat childish things like visiting arcades and county fairs. Not that you couldn’t do that without her but I think you know what I mean.

- Movie nights; usually with him and Kelly.

- Museum dates.

- He genuinely thinks that your weird interests and quirks are endearing and fascinating. Other people would consider them strange, Ian considers them to be a compelling part of your personality.

- Seeing you talk about things that you’re passionate about is one of his favorite things in the world. He thinks that drive to learn and do and the intelligence that you possess is extremely sexy.

- Sometimes he’ll just look at you like he wants to eat you alive and it’s extremely problematic. Sir, we are in public.

- Lots of flirting. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been together, he still enjoys making you flustered and treating you like the prettiest girl he’s ever seen.

- Unnecessary and frankly disrespectful noises. If he doesn’t stop making salacious growls at you, you’re gonna have to act up.

- Letting him explain all his different theories and findings to you. He loves showing off and having your undivided attention.

- Breaking rules together. If you aren’t keen on doing so, he’d definitely tease you for being a goody goody.

- He carries around a flask most of the time so the two of you can always just park somewhere and drink together whenever you feel like. Some of your best memories take place in his car, passing around a little metal container and talking about nothing in particular.

- Sarcasm drips from this mans every pore so you should try to get used to it. As annoying as it can be, it does make for some funny comments here and there.

- Snarky comments; whether they’re directed at you or someone else. Ian can be a bit of a bastard so don’t be surprised when his mouth opens and something mocking comes out. Just be prepared to occasionally slap his arm and stop him from being a total ass to people; even if it’s justified.

- Corny little jokes.

- Trying to keep him from verbally destroying people. He’s very verbal about his opinions so chances are, he’s going to speak his mind at one point or another and you might not want to be there when he does.

- He’s a voice of reason for just about everyone on Earth so if you need someone to tell you when you’re being stupid, he’s perfect for you.

- Sticking with him and being there for him after everything happens. He changes very drastically in the following years after meeting Mr. Hammond but you love him no less.

- No matter what people may think of him, you still defend him and proudly stand by his side. You’ve learned to ignore the opinion of others and not entertain their gossip.

- Helping him deal with the trauma that comes with almost getting fucking eaten.

- Ian doesn’t get jealous very often. He’s secure enough in himself and knows that you wouldn’t cheat on him, but every now and again, if you’re particularly close to like a colleague or something, he’ll show some signs of jealousy. Mainly, he’ll just ask a bunch of questions about them and your relationship; all the while trying to play it off as normal curiosity.

- Ian is incredibly protective of you; particularly after the events of Jurassic park. He’s willing to do whatever he can to keep you safe; even if it means endangering himself or doing something that scares the hell out of him.

- The two of you don’t fight extremely often; and you rarely have very serious fights, but you do have an argument from time to time. He may say something sarcastic or hurtful in the heat of the moment on occasion but he never means it and he always immediately apologizes.

- Very few fights last overnight. He’s usually so quick to apologize and try to sort things out that you’re back on track in no time. Under his egotistical shell, he’s really just a big softie who wants things to be alright between the two of you.

- He tells you that he loves you a perfectly average amount of times; not too much and not too little. And he loves hearing you say it back or just tell him that you love him for no real reason.

- Ian legitimately loves kids. Like he’s fully prepared to get married and start a family with you at any given moment. Believe me, you just say the words and he’ll pop the question.

[the-writer-nerd-ro]

OC Dr. Fox Bennett (they/them) x Ramsay Cole (he/him)

Jurassic World Dominion Fanfic

A bit of a self-insert but it's pride month and I want to be pinned to the wall by this man so I was forced to write this... No regrets

Fox and Ram

Chapter 1

"Give it to me straight, Ram," Fox said, coming up behind Ramsay Cole and placing their hand on his shoulder. Fox was about a half a foot shorter than him, stocky and muscular as opposed to Ramsay's lean, lanky, and graceful build.

"Mm, you sure you want me to be straight?" Ramsay teased, already anticipating whatever wild shit Fox Bennett was about to say.

"Do you think Ian Malcolm is hot?"

"I think Ian Malcolm is old enough to be your dad," Ramsay said with a laugh.

"Exactly! He's a dilf. A silver… Never mind."

"A silver fox?"

"There can only be one Fox here," the scientist said with a grin.

"Were you even listening to what he said during that lecture?" The head of communications asked, casually wrapping an arm around Fox.

"Sure, he said we were the future." There were practically stars in Fox's gray eyes.

"No, he said the future was fucked. And he implied that it was our faults."

"Well that's rude. He's still hot though. Do you think his hair would be soft or do you think he uses product?"

"Based on the way he smells, he uses at least enough hair gel to drown a raptor."

"You've gotten close enough to smell him? Dude. Jealous. Every time I think about getting him to sign my copy of his book I get nervous and chicken out."

"I thought you were a Fox, not a chicken."

"That was a fowl joke."

"Didn't mean to ruffle your feathers. Anyway, Dr. Malcolm's not that intimidating. And he's not that smart, either. He's just a nihilist with some pizzazz."

"Have you read his book though?"

"Yeah. He's smart but it's all just words. Change comes from action. The future is fucked, thanks for telling us, Malcolm. Now what are we going to do about it?"

Fox paused in their steps, "What are we going to do about it?"

"Step one? No more hero worship. Malcolm is not an idol and Dodgson is not a god."

"What about Wu?"

"Who?"

"Dr. Henry Wu. He's the lead geneticist, I work under him."

"If he can get us out of the mess he caused then he would be a hero, but I still wouldn't worship him."

"Seems kind of cynical, Ram."

"Gentleman," Dodgson appeared before them like a spectre, "Is there a problem?"

Ramsay didn't like to argue with his boss, he didn't want to give away his less than favorable opinion about Biosyn, but some things he wouldn't just overlook, even if his coworkers would.

"Well there is a bit of a problem," Ramsay started, as Fox began to nervously fidget with their glasses, knowing where this was going, "You see my colleague here is not a gentleman, they're nonbinary, so I'd expect you to address them appropriately.

Dodgson blinked and glances at Fox's name tag.

"Of course, Dr. Bennett. My apologies."

"It's really not a problem, sir. It happens all the time."

"It shouldn't," Ramsay muttered under his breath.

"Well, I'll get it right next time."

"Thank you, sir." When Dodgson was out of earshot Fox turned on Ramsay.

"What did you do that for?"

"I'm not going to stand back and let someone misgender the only person here that I actually like," Ramsay said, reaching out and cupping Fox's cheek.

Fox blushed hard, "I appreciate it, Ram, but it's embarrassing when people make a big deal of it."

"I'll be subtler next time," Ramsay promised, subtly pushing Fox against the nearest wall and leaning down to kiss them.

Fox kissed back passionately, not caring about the security tapes or their coworkers or the fucked up future. It was hard to focus on the future when you were living in a perfect moment.

Ramsay ran his hand through Fox's short, caramel colored hair and Fox clasped Ramsay's shirt. One of the buttons came undone when Ramsay eventually pulled away. Ramsay glanced down at it and laughed.

"If you wanted to undress me you could have waited until we were in private."

Fox grinned a shit-eating grin at Ramsay, "There'll be time for that later."

"All the time in the world. But I've got to get going, we have some important guests coming to visit Biosyn. And I have a feeling you've got work to do, too."

"Right, gotta fix the future."

"Somebody has to. Be careful, okay?"

"Okay."

"You're one of the only people I really trust here, so please… Just stay sharp."

"That's what I do. See you later, Ram.

"See you later, Foxy." Ramsay didn't know that the next 24 hours would be hell on earth, or that he'd spend most of it praying that Fox was okay. All he knew now was that Fox gave him the most reassuring smile before they walked away, reminding Ramsay why, of all the people here, they were the one he trusted.

[curiosi-tea-writes]

Stuffed T-Rex

Pairing: Alan Grant / Ian Malcolm

Summary: Ian has had a hard time sleeping for years but a joke gift from the man he has feelings for brings him just enough comfort to help. After a while, though, he has to admit it to someone other than himself.

Note: Wrote this little one-shot for @intricatecakes because if it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t have had the confidence to actually post it.

------------------------

Alan thought it was hilarious. It was the funniest thing in the world at the time. He knew it would earn him a scowl, perhaps a light hit to the shoulder, but it was worth it to watch Ian pull the red stuffed t-rex out of the bag.

"You really just enjoy making fun of me, don't you?" Ian scoffed as he set the bag aside with a roll of his eyes.

"What else are friends for?" Alan shrugged with a laugh. He gave the man a nudge to his shoulder with a large smile.

Ellie laughed which earned her own scowl from Ian. "Alright, open my gift, birthday boy." She handed him another small bag.

Ian rolled his eyes with a huff. "Such great friends," he spoke with a sarcastic tone but truly he meant it. The two paleontologists at the table with him knew that.

Alan would soon forget the present he had gotten his friend slightly as a joke, despite that it had sat on his desk for nearly a month leading up to his birthday. But Ian eyed the gift bag with a soft smile. There was something about who it came from that made what could have brought about a painful memory rather sweet.

That night after Ian had said goodnight to Kelly, he went through his normal nightly routine of tossing and turning. He hated this time of night where he could lay awake for hours, fighting to go to sleep with no hope of such a thing actually happening. He could go nights at a time with not a wink of sleep, he should be used to it. This had been happening for years, since the first night he slept after the incident of Jurassic Park. Sorna had only made it so much worse. Before it was just nightmares. Now he would wish for even those because at least that would mean he slept.

He had tried many different ways to fix it. After Jurassic Park, he would often wake from nightmares, needing to not be alone. Ellie helped with that. A simple phone call to her would talk him away from the fear triggered pain in his leg and calm him enough to rest for the remainder of the night, even if he couldn't fall back asleep. After Sorna, he couldn't put Ellie through the long nights he was awake for. After having her first child, he knew she needed every ounce of sleep she could get. So he started calling Alan. He knew the paleontologist worked incredibly late nights, up fascinated over his latest finds or agonizing over funding. After the third of fourth night, Ian began to believe Alan enjoyed their late night calls as much as he did. Even if for most of them they simply sat in silence.

With a tired sigh, after multiple hours of struggling to sleep, he finally sat up. He made to reach for the phone sitting on his nightstand but his hand froze. Pain filled his chest as he remembered that the other man was currently on a plane back to Montana, having only been able to go to dinner with him because he and Ellie had work to do a few towns away from him. He wouldn't be home for a few hours still.

He let his hand fall back to the bed. He racked his brain for who he could possibly call but no name besides the two paleontologists came to mind. Nobody knew him like they did. Nobody else understood.

His eyes fell on the bags the two had given him earlier that evening at dinner and Ian's face softened to a small smile. Nodding to himself, he got out of bed and pulled the red stuffed dinosaur from the bag Alan had earlier set in front of him. He examined the animal slowly, taking a moment to enjoy how soft it was. In a moment of unthinking, he brought the toy up to his face and took a deep breath, taking in the scent that he knew all too well was Alan's cologne and the dust that perpetually filled his house, carried back from the dig site every day. It was a scent of comfort.

It pained him a little when he realized what he was doing. Although he would deny it to any person who presented him with the question, he had to admit to at least himself that his feelings for Alan went well beyond friendship. If there was a possibility he could deny it to himself before, there was no chance of it now. Not as he carried the soft t-rex back to his bed and climbed back under the covers, the toy never parting from its spot nestled under his chin.

Ian couldn't help the small smile he had as he held the toy close to him and, for the first time in a very long time, managed to slip into a peaceful sleep.

Years later as Kelly lay dozing on Alan's sofa one summer night and the two men sat on Alan’s bed, Ian commented that he should go make his way to the hotel he typically stayed at while visiting the other man in Montana. But for the first time in their few month old relationship, instead of offering to help get Kelly to the car, Alan asked him to stay.

A small wave of panic washed over Ian. He had long ago made Alan aware that he was sleeping better through the night but never, even after they got together, admitted what made that change. He thought a part of him believed he wouldn't have to tell him. Maybe one night he would manage to fall asleep without clutching the stuffed animal to his chest. Then he could consider himself cured of his nightmares for good without the need of a crutch. Now, however, he was put in a position where it was impossible to avoid the fact. He couldn’t bring himself to turn down the offer he had silently been waiting for Alan to be comfortable enough to bring up. But in order to accept, he needed to either tell him or make peace with the fact that he wouldn’t be sleeping that night. He found himself not particularly fond of either option.

"Hey," Alan drew his attention back, his hand falling gently on the back of Ian's neck. He smiled softly as he felt Ian lean into his touch. "What's going on in that head of yours?"

Ian sighed heavily and made his way to his suitcase in the corner of the room. "You are not by any means allowed to laugh at me for this," he told Alan sternly and he knelt and opened the bag. He took a calming breath as he pulled the stuffed dinosaur from his bag and carried it back to the bed.

Alan smiled brightly, memories of working at his desk with the animal sitting beside his papers came back after years of being forgotten. "You still have this thing?" He held out his hand for the toy and smiled softly as Ian handed it to him. "I just found it in a museum gift shop and thought it would be a funny gift."

"Yeah, well. I slept with it that night and it became a crutch of sorts," Ian admitted quietly, eyes down looking at his hands as he fiddled them in his lap. "I can't manage sleep without it. It just- it made me think of you and it helped."

"That's why you started sleeping better?" Alan gave a soft laugh.

Ian scrunched his nose a little. "Hey, I told you not to laugh." He bumped Alan’s shoulder with his own, trying to lighten his own mood.

Alan brought his gaze up to Ian's face and covered the man's slightly shaky hands with one of his own. "I'm laughing but not at you. I think it's sweet and I'm glad you found something that helps."

With a sigh of relief, Ian let his head fall to Alan's shoulder. He turned his hand over and threaded their fingers together, smiling brightly as he felt Alan give his hand a light squeeze. "Now that that's done with," Ian chuckled out, "can we go to bed?"

Alan nodded with a bright smile. He turned his head to place a soft kiss to Ian's hair and hummed, holding the t-rex out to the other man who took it happily and held it close to him. Alan could only smile fondly at the man he absolutely adored.

As Ian tucked his head under Alan's chin once they were in bed, the t-rex under his own, Alan gave another soft chuckle. "Did you name it?"

Ian sighed out a soft laugh. "Uh, yeah, I did. I named him Parker."

"Parker?" Alan pulled back a little to look at Ian, smiling as he met his eyes. His brain ran through different reasons for the name, looking for some connection Ian might have to it but nothing came to him. "Why?"

"'Park,'" Ian spoke with a large smile. "Like 'Jurassic Park.'"

Alan scoffed lightly with a smile. "You named your stuffed t-rex after the place where you were almost eaten by a real t-rex?"

Ian shrugged. "Felt appropriate."

"You're absolutely ridiculous," Alan muttered, shaking his head.

"Yeah," Ian sighed, putting his head back to Alan's chest. "It's why you love me." He smirked softly to himself as he could hear and feel Alan's heartbeat quicken at his statement. He held the paleontologist closer and gave a soft content hum.

Alan sighed into Ian's hair. "Yeah, it is," he admitted, his voice muffled, unsure if the other man could even hear him. It didn't matter. They both knew it was the truth.

[neo-frill]

Reasons why I love the first Jurassic Park movie:

This can be just me because I'm stupid but the characters seem very realistic

Lex and Tim's relationship. I have a younger brother and it's just.. I can see us in them. They make fun of each other all the time but they get seriously worried about each other. (Lex when Tim falls of the fence?? And then isn't breathing?? When they're in the kitchen and she does everything she can to save him, despite being incredibly scared???)

Ian Malcolm. I'm thinking about making a list just about him, because he's great. At least to me he seems great.

The characters still keep their humor even when they're in a park full of dinosaurs who want to eat them. And honestly, that's how humans are.

Alan Grant's development when it comes to kids. At the beginning he hates kids. Describes them as loud and obnoxious etc. When they meet Lex and Tim he doesn't like them very much. But then he does all of that stuff to save them and he starts joking around with them, making them feel better and being seriously worried about them. Like I care about them worried, not not saving them would be rude of me worried. Then the scene in the helicopter where they're in his arms. Just.. all of that.

The female characters. Ellie Sattler who got to the shed, yes with the guy's (I don't remember his name, fuck) help when he distracted the dinosaur, but then she ran to the shed and got everything done right, fought that dino that attacked her there, all that stuff. Not to mention she seemed to be really successful in her career and she would be even without Alan and I stand by that. Lex who's really smart, brave and despite being really young hacked that computer and got everything to work. These two basically saved everyone's asses.

Accurate depiction of the rich.

The dinosaurs. The way they look and everything just.. the dinosaurs.

Alan and Ellie's relationship?? There's nothing that special about it, or shouldn't be but I just have to appreciate how healthy it is.

The scene where Alan, Ellie and Ian get off the thing to see the eggs. I don't know why, I just love it.

The science. I'm not good with science so that probably has impact but what they did seems to me like something people could do, someday. And how they explained it, included problems that we would have in real life.

this thing I posted before:

A lot of the lines are just,, iconic (no, not "you crazy son of bitch, you did it")(on second thought, it is one of them)

Might edit this and add more reasons later. Will edit this when I'm done with all the reasons why I love Ian. Might make different posts for why I love other characters. Might make a post about why I hate John Hammond.

[drunklander]

Drunj!Der Yells About Outlander

Thoughts on Ep. 503

Oh, Outlander. Le sigh.

On one hand, this episode gave me everything I’ve been wanting for 84 years a long time: Jamie and Claire, together, working as a team as the center of the episode. On the other hand, this very much did *not* feel like an episode of Outlander.

Bottle episodes are fine. The Garrison Commander, The Wedding and A. Malcolm were all basically bottle episodes. Two of those three are a couple of my favorite episodes of the whole series. This episode was like if the times the show decided to cosplay as a different genre (horror this time, rather than the political drama and military drama we’ve seen them attempt in the past) was dialed up to the point it no longer resembled an episode of the same show. From the music to the directing to p much everything.

This episode made me think that like if Outlander was a Venn diagram it would have Claire and Jamie working together as a team, them in the bulk of the episode, and a Good Episode™ of Outlander. You could have two but never all three.

(Also I hate horror movies. They’re just aggressively not jam.)

Ok but now that Marsali is Claire’s apprentice, can we have her and Fergus find out about time travel this season? Because in the books it’s like vaguely implied in MOBY but we never actually get to see that convo.

Also, yes, Marsali, Boston’s pretty rad. Not that I’m biased or anything. In addition to apparently “discovering” penicillin, we also invented Amurrica.

Shorter Claire’s VO: Idgaf about the timeline anymore. Don’t see how that can go wrong.

So was the blurry af title card Marsali practicing suturing? Why did they shoot it like that. It looks more like how they shot Mr. Beardsley’s POV rather than through the moldy bread covers or whatever it was through.

That whole intro part felt like it came from a different episode and was just tacked on to remind us that mold shenanigans are still a thing that is happening.

I do love Marsali, and her with Claire, though, but still.

SUPER SOFT FRASER FACE TOUCHING!

Ok so Jamie is only gonna do another cross burning when he calls his dudes to fight the English, right? Because he did the whole big thing like “I won’t light the flaming dildo again until we’re going to war” and now he’s raising the militia but not doing the fire part when they showed the new wicker dildo right there up high on the Ridge. So like, because that whole bit was about the men being loyal to him, he’s only gonna light it for freedom, right?

FLAMING DILDO OF FREEDOM

So Fergus using Claire’s list of medical tips as his note for the printer is def not going to come back to bite anyone in the ass. Nope. Def not.

Also I love that the whisky thing is Fergus’ thing in the show.

TEAM KEEP GIVING FERGUS AND MARSALI STUFF TO DO BECAUSE I LIKE THEM AND THE BOOKS FORGOT ABOUT THEM.

How many pigs is Marsali gonna butcher to practice her skillz? Also is Deadguy McWhatshisface still in the cellar somewhere?

Mr. Trouble! I love Germain a lot and would love more of him with Grannie and Grandda, pls and thx.

Also, would *love* some Bree and Marsali time. Maybe next episode while the bros are in Brownsville and they’re at the Ridge by themselves? Pretty please?

Ah yes, plantation jokes. In the time when those exist. And you’ve stayed at one. Come on, Bree.

Oh look, Jamie and Claire not keeping secrets from each other. Good. Well done, kids.

But they’re keeping it from Bree. Who, as the grown-ass woman at the center of the Bonnet bullshit, fucking deserves to know. So fuck y’all for not telling her.

She knows, I know that, but they think she doesn’t sooo, do better.

Lots of callback references from Jamie this season. The thing about his scars last week, Black Jack, the brand Claire cut off and his dad’s stroke this week. Ngl, the show is so different now that those references don’t even seem like they’re from the same series.

Gonna take this twin bit as an opportunity to remind everyone to watch Orphan Black.

Kezzie leaves-his-pants-for-the-kittens Beardsley, too good for this world. Too pure.

You come across a creepy fucking cabin in the woods, that you know is the home of a physically abusive fuckwad, and you immediately split up? Claire. Girl. You’ve seen horror movies.

OMG HAI CATS! I GOT ALL EXCITED THAT ADSO MIGHT BE ONE OF THE PANTS!KITTENS BUT ALAS. SOON. SOON, MY FLOOFER.

I fucking hate jump scares. Like I knew her face was gonna be in the window when Jamie turned back around, because this episode is the most trope-y horror short ever, but still. I fucking do not like horror movies, y’all, and jump scares are cheap.

Jamie on the other hand has never seen a horror movie and clearly doesn’t know that you DO NOT GO INTO THE CREEPY CABIN WITH THE CREEPY JUMP SCARE LADY.

Omfg with the banging door, it’s like they were like ok let’s read Making Horror Movies for Dummies and then put in ALL THE TROPES.

Also, this might be the one instance where the book name was better. Why the fuck would you name the goat Billy when Hiram is *clearly* a superior goat name.

CLAIRE. WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING UPSTAIRS. YOU ARE THE GIRL WHO GETS KILLED FIRST IN THE HORROR MOVIE. WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS. STOP BEING A DUMBASS.

Oh, hey, another jump scare. I’m both bored and annoyed.

Like we finally get an episode that is centered on Jamie and Claire. Together. Team Fraser. And it’s this nonsense.

I cannot with this show, tbh.

“Poor men bleed for rich men’s gold.” Two hundred and fifty fucking years later and it’s still true, Mrs. Findlay.

Did they borrow zombie noises from The Walking Dead for this episode? I swear to fuck every time Mr. Beardsley makes a noise I’m like uhhh, what show am I watching again?

“What you must have done to deserve this.” Yeah, like don’t @ me. I know abuse is fucking wrong. But you know what? This is fucked-up-past-times. Fanny’s out here by herself with no rights and no help. Go for it, girl. Fuck that fucker up.

This season on AHS: Beardsley Farm, the dulcet sounds of afterbirth squelching.

Here I was, all pleased that we were spared Breast Milk and Periodpalooza in the premiere. I should have known better. And yes, I know it’s natural and a part of childbirth, yada yada. I watch Call the Midwife and even *they* don’t fucking squelch it like that.

The subtitles spell Baltimore “Baltimoe” and now I have Another Op’nin’, Another Show from Kiss Me, Kate stuck in my head.

Is it too much to ask that the show find some way to demonstrate the past being The Worst™ that isn’t women and children getting abused or raped or murdered by shitty men? We already know men are shitty. Men are still shitty.

Like seriously, who the fuck does Mr. Beardsley think he is, murdering all his wives for not having babies, Henry VIII?!

“Having a baby doesn’t make me a mother.” Yuppppp. You do what’s best for you, Fanny.

“And your name is Sassenach.” And she’s not even like and “that’s a weird ass name.” I lowkey love Fanny Beardsley?

I still wish they skipped this whole thing though.

Omfg Jamie. BuT tHeY wOn’T bE wItH tHeIr FaMiLy. YOU *HAVE* TO KNOW CLAIRE’S RIGHT. YOU CAN’T BE THAT FUCKING THICK. NO SHIT THE FUTURE IS SAFER. Also, they’re fucking adults. They are their own family. You left Jenny. Young Ian stayed with the Mohawk. PEOPLE GROW UP AND LEAVE AND IT’S OK.

“Maybe she’s gone to find help.” Apparently Jamie *is* that thick. Really, bro? She left to find help? Really? Fucking dumbass.

“And we’ll seek Mrs. Beardsley as we travel.” “We won’t find her.” That’s a nice way of phrasing “You’re a fucking dumbass, she’s gone and claimed her freedom for the first time in her life. Let her have that, you fuckwit.”

The shot of the leaves blowing is literally like straight out of The Walking Dead.

Also loool at the birds.

Oh hey, next week we get all the dumb Brownsville stuff! And probs little to no Claire and Jamie. Exciting times.

[stuffandwonder]

I wrote down some thoughts/reactions as i watched Jurassic Park livestream style for my own amusement so I'm gonna post them here for myself and if you are super bored I guess. Can you still not do a read more on mobile for Christs sake?!

***

I always forget the first 5 mins of this movie and am confused

And that Richard Attenborough has an Irish accent?!

One of the first things Dr Malcolm does on screen is purr/growl like a cat and i love that

"We've got a t-rex" Alan: nearly faints. I love this dino nerd

"Are these characters auto-erotica?' Excuse me dude what lmao

Not having auto locking doors is a pretty major fucking oversight tho isn't it lads?! Not even an oversight just... they didnt think it was necessary?!

How did i forget that l Samuel L Jackson is in this!? In a minor role no less

'Dinosaurs eat man. Woman inherits the earth' what an icon

"He left us!" Hun he was less than useless anyway, let him go get eaten on the shitter

I don't care what anyone says this t-rex scene holds up over 20 years later.

"Oh boy I hate being right all the time" *cackle*

I'll never get why Denis doesn't just grab the canister and walk after he crashes? Forget the goddam car

The fact they turned his death into a comedy scene is genius

'I hate tree's' doesnt he end up spending a significant amount of time in trees in this movie?!

"Well...we're back in the car again" Tim is a such a little dude

"Must go faster" "Think they'll have that on the tour?" Meanwhile Ellie is screaming her head off. This is why Ian is a dude

Oh it's supposed to be a Scottish accent. Huh.

"I'd forgotten how obsessed with 'Dino = Bird' Alan is and its absolutely hilarious

The old electric fence joke is so mean but so a thing every dad would absolutely do. Even tho Alan's not a dad

Why was that raptor just chilling behind some cabling before popping out tho lol

"Clever girl" *dies*

"Unless they figured out how to open doors" *opens door*

Honestly if they weren't trying to kill a couple of children i'd root for the raptors in this scene

Would a raptor actually fit through the door glass tho?

How many times is Tim gonna nearly get crushed by falling things

I love how, rightly or wrongly, Jurassic Park taught us that ultimately t-rex are okay because they are big and scary but dumb and easy to trick and raptors are the embodiment of pure evil because they are really smart yet also stupid enough to throw themselves at a t-rex thinking they could win lol

Why in the copter at the end is Ellie's make up suddenly fresh and on point? She had time to wash and make her face and brush her hair?!

If you don't love this score please leave my presence and never return. Thx

[thatsparrow]

(alan grant/ellie sattler • post-fallen kingdom • read on ao3)

"Goddamn Hammond," Alan says when he sees the push alert from the New York Times. Then, "Ellie, wake up." It's somewhere near 2 A.M. but Nublar and Sorna had turned him into a light sleeper and that particular nervous habit has proved harder to kill than a genetically engineered raptor. His glasses are still sitting on the nightstand and so he has to squint a little at the screen to read it properly—Ellie and the kids gave him hell for weeks when he finally caved and increased the font size—but his eyes aren't so bad that he can't recognize the earth-shaking magnitude of the situation spelled out by the headline.  

LIVE: Seven different species of dinosaurs have been spotted in and around the Northern California town of Mendocino. They are believed to have originated from the closed Costa Rican theme park, Jurassic World.

"Alan?" Ellie asks, half asleep and eyes blinking shut against the light off the screen. "What is it?" He offers the phone in lieu of an answer, waits as her vision adjusts enough for her to read it, knows she's finished when her whole body goes fossil-still.

"Goddamn Hammond," Alan says again, pressing his fingers against the bridge of his nose. "I don't care that he's dead. Damn him for his recklessness, damn him for the parks, and damn him for every act of foolishness that's followed." He lets out a slow sigh, rubs at his eyes. "I'd never admit it to the bastard, but Ian was right. It was only a matter of time until something like this happened."

Ellie has the full article open now, but it's no more than a short paragraph, this story is developing at the bottom. "We don't know what this is, yet. Maybe it's just another San Diego."

"A half-dozen people dead plus some kid's labrador?"

"Short term," Ellie says. "Containable. It sounds like whatever species have been seen so far are all herbivorous."

"You trust the people of Mendocino to know the difference?"

"I trust them to recognize sharp teeth." She sighs, pulls her thumb across the screen to refresh the article even though it's been no more than a minute. "What a mess. What an absolute mess." She hands the phone back to him, lets out a tired exhale. "What I wouldn't give to put Hammond's genie back in the bottle."

"What should we do?"

"Sell any remaining stock in InGen?" He raises an eyebrow at her and she smiles a little, but there's no humor in it. "That was a joke. I don't know, Alan—what can we do? We're academics, not dinosaur hunters. Our only relevant experience here is not having died twenty-five years ago. We could offer ourselves up in an advisory capacity, I guess, but even then, there are plenty of people out there who have done hands-on work with them. Whatever insight we may have had is outdated by over a decade at this point. Comparatively, we're like—"

"Dinosaurs?"

"Exactly."

Alan exhales, considering. "You're right, I know that, but I just—" he breaks off, turning over the phone in his hand. There's a video embedded in the article, a grainy thumbnail of what looks like the back of a Stegosaurus. The way the image is frozen, it looks like the Stego's tail is in mid-motion, suspended on an arc that would take it through the wall of a garden shed. With any luck, Ellie is right, and all the theropods were killed by the eruption on Nublar. Then again, if luck was playing any role here, Hammond's experiments should have failed at the start. "It feels like we should be doing something, doesn't it?"

"It does."

"What if we drove up there?"

"To Mendocino?" Ellie asks, and he nods. "Tonight?"

"I was thinking first thing in the morning, maybe. Wait until more reports come in. Who knows—maybe this will all have been cleared up by then, anyway."

"You think?"

"No, but I've never tried being an optimist before."

Alan refreshes the article again and sees a new paragraph of text, bare bones information that mentions three additional species—including a suspected Allosaurus—have been spotted near I-20 heading east. Life finding a way. Goddamn Malcolm. Goddamn Hammond. Goddamn it all.

—

The next day does bring more news, and none of it good. The current theory is that Hammond's former partner, Benjamin Lockwood, funded some sort of rescue operation to Nublar, retrieved an unknown number of species that were brought to his Northern California estate for a black market auction, and at some point during this process—predictably, Alan thinks—the dinosaurs escaped and bedlam ensued. Further details include: Lockwood's body in an upstairs bedroom, his death attributed (surprisingly) to natural causes; correspondence between Lockwood's assistant, Eli Mills, and an auctioneer, both of whom are still missing, though suspected dead (and, Alan presumes, suspected eaten); and an unknown theropod body in Lockwood's front hall, impaled on the horns of an Agujaceratops skull. Most of the servers in the lab below the estate were blown skyward, but of the data that's been recovered, it seems to be another genetic experiment, a cross-breeding of the Indominus with a Velociraptor.

("They never fucking learn," Alan says when he gets to that section of the report, hands white-knuckled around his coffee cup. "This has Wu's fingerprints all over it. Not enough to put raptor and rex DNA in a blender with whatever else they could get their hands on—no, he had to scale it down and make it twice as clever. If this wasn't intended for military application, I'll eat my hat, then buy another one and eat that, too.")

Though the article leaves a good number of questions unanswered, it does make clear that Hammond's follies have again found their way to the mainland, and with a sense of permanency this time. New sightings are reported with alarming frequency as the morning goes on, increasing in both the number of different species and the distance they've traveled from Lockwood's estate. Tracking efforts have been mobilized, but it's all too little, too late—not to mention the public debate that sparks up again over the question of recapturing or killing.

"Okay," Ellie says once they've read through the reports, putting her phone face-down on the kitchen table and burying her face in her hands. "It's a mess. Officially. This makes what happened in San Diego look like an incident at a petting zoo. We've got at least twenty species running loose—including, so far, a T. rex, a Baryonyx, and an Allosaurus—that are all spreading further apart by the moment, and as of now, the best method of tracking them is to wait for someone standing by to post about it to Twitter."  

"I hate Twitter," Alan says, reflexive.

"I know you do." Ellie smiles at him a little, then lets out a slow breath. "So what should we do? We know more than we did last night, but really it's just enough to tell us that this situation is worse than we could have imagined. I'm ready to jump in the car and start driving if you are, but at this point, I'm not sure what good that would do."

"Might feel better than just sitting here," Alan says, lacing his hands behind his neck to keep them from reaching for his phone again. "But no, you're right, I'm not sure what it would actually accomplish."

Ellie's quiet for a moment, fingers drumming an absent rhythm on the table. They weren't exactly young when Hammond first brought them to Nublar, but looking now at the ridged veins on the back of her hands—thinking of the new wrinkles across his own forehead and his hair that's gone grey-white in recent years—it strikes Alan how much older they've both become. Maybe too old to be playing games like this.

"Can I ask you something?" Ellie says.

"Always."

"Imagine that we did have a plan, and we knew exactly what was needed to make a difference here—what side of the debate would we be on?"

"What do you mean?"

Her hands are still restless, index finger tapping lightly against the wood. "Half the world seems to think they should be shot down as they're spotted, and the other wants to see them safely rounded up and brought to some sort of preserve. We never talked about it much when it was a question of the eruption on Nublar, but now I'm curious"

Alan frowns a little, brows pulling together. "They're dangerous, Ellie. That's more true than ever with no fences or open ocean between them and the rest of the world."

"The sauropods aren't."

"They're megafauna that belong to a different age. They can still do damage on a scale that society isn't ready for." He looks at Ellie, a little surprised. "You think they should be kept alive? After everything that's happened?"

"Don't get me wrong, I'll be the first to agree that everyone would be better off if all of the raptors had died before they'd hatched, but—" she breaks off, smiling at him a little helplessly. "I don't know, Alan. I think back to when Hammond first drove us around in that Jeep and you turned my head to look out the window and it—it was all of my childhood dreams come to life. Nothing could compare to seeing the bones that I'd spent my life studying brought to life in front of me and standing sixty feet tall, and I know you felt that, too. Look, say what you will about Hammond—and God knows that I have—but whatever may have been the end result, you can't deny that there was something noble in his intentions."

"I seem to remember another saying that has to do with 'good intentions'."

"Alan—"

"They're not real, Ellie. You know that. They are, at best, distantly removed cousins of the dinosaurs that really lived, and probably more closely resemble whatever amphibian DNA that Wu mixed into the fossilized blood. Whatever you felt—whatever we felt—on Nublar after seeing them for the first time, it was just a fantasy."

Ellie's smile turns a little sad. "It was a pretty spectacular fantasy." She pauses, then reaches out to take one of Alan's hands, both of them weathered and older, palms still a little callused from years spent in the field. Ellie's thumb runs a gentle pattern over his skin. "I'm going to ask you for a favor now, alright? For me, and for the sake of your younger self, I want you to imagine a world where it's not all or nothing. Where kids can grow up learning that raptors actually had feathers, and where they can visit a preserve and see the drawings from their picture books come to life. You don't have to remind me of all the bad that's come from the parks and Hammond's efforts, but you can't lie to me and pretend that there wasn't some good in there, too."

Alan makes a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat—which is as close as he's willing to get to a yes—but then he does let his mouth twitch towards a smile, lifts their joined hands and presses a kiss to her knuckles. As if he could ever say no to anything she asked of him.

Ellie gets up and moves to take their emptied mugs to the sink, and as she starts to run the water, Alan does as she's requested, allowing himself to remember the bright moments among the bad. Weighs the terror he'd felt at seeing the T. rex chewing through the Jeep's roof towards Lex and Tim against the moment of resting his palm against the gentle curve of the Brachiosaur's nose. Watching the Spino's hungry jaws carve through the hull of the Kirbys' chartered plane with all the ease of crushing a soda can. Leaning his body on the belly of the Triceratops and feeling its breath thrumming all the way through his chest.

No, Ellie's not wrong—for all his flaws and his arrogance, Hammond had managed to build something beautiful. Still, it's just as much a lie to pretend that the near-death experiences shouldn't weigh heavier than the rest. Were those brief moments of splendor really worth Muldoon or Arnold or any of the others who'd lost their lives for the sake of Hammond's hubris? Not to mention whatever poor civilians might now stumble into the path of the wandering Allosaurus or Baryonyx or any other not-yet-identified theropods who have found their way to the mainland. It's too much cost with not enough reward. Would it be worth it if the carnivores were gone? You can't play that game when the technology is already there; someone is always going to get ambitious and want something with more teeth.

It's a question that keeps him up at night, even after he and Ellie have decided that there's nothing for them to do at the moment—other than keep an eye on their phones and wait for a call from the government or InGen. So they wait, and Alan wonders, and meanwhile news reports still surface with regular frequency of sightings. It's a disaster with no obvious answer, and he's no closer to coming up with any sort of solution—but at least if there's a decision to be made, it won't be coming from him.

And then the presumed-dead Claire Dearing calls Ellie about a potential rescue mission for the last remaining Velociraptor and the whole question suddenly stops being so theoretical.

Goddamn it.