Warnings: Following JW canon that says Lockwood was Hammond’s business partner. Takes place before the events of JW1. No betas.
Summary: You can’t sleep and accidentally wake up Eli. You have some thoughts about Jurassic World and what’s going on there.
Word Count: 680
You rested your head on Eli’s chest, staring at the far side of the room. Moonlight danced through the lace curtains covering the French doors leading to the balcony, occasionally disappearing as a cloud moved over the moon. You trailed a hand over his chest, fingers burrowing into the soft fabric of his shirt.
“Why aren’t you asleep?” he asked, his voice soft. One of his hands landed on your head, gently stroking your hair.
“I tried. I couldn’t fall asleep.”
“Mm.” His movements were slow and soft, as if he were about to fall back to sleep himself. “Try again.”
You laughed softly and propped yourself up on your elbow, looking down at him. “Gee, I didn’t think of that. No wonder you’re the man in charge around here.”
His eyes were closed but he raised his brows at you, as if to say, “Are you surprised?”
You settled down beside him, looking up at the ceiling. Eli was warm and smelled like soap. He’d bathed before bed, which meant his hair was going to be unruly in the morning.
“What’s keeping you awake?” His voice was still soft, but it sounded a little more alert. You hated the idea of waking him up, but you were glad you could spend a few moments awake with him.
“I dunno. I guess I just keep thinking about that island.”
“What island?”
“The one that has all of John Hammond’s dinosaurs on it.”
“Oh, you mean, Jurassic World?”
“Yeah, that one.”
“What about it?”
“There are rumors that they’re going to unveil a new dinosaur soon.”
“Yeah? They do that a lot.”
You pressed your face against his neck and breathed in deeply. He squirmed against you, but instead of rolling away, he rolled toward you, placing a hand on your side.
“How do you design a new dinosaur?” you murmured against him.
“What?” He lifted himself up to look down at you, his eyes finally opening. His eyelashes were nearly glued together with sleep and he blinked a few times until he could focus on your face.
“How do you design a new dinosaur?”
“I don’t think that’s what they’re doing.”
“I do. I mean, from what I’ve read, they pretty much have living specimens from all the DNA samples InGen was able to collect. If they bred another dinosaur that’s just another one that they already have, I don’t think they’d make such a big deal about it, would they?”
“Zoos do it all the time, babe,” he said, brushing hair out of your face. “They’re always announcing baby animals. Hippos, otters, flamingos. Whatever. Especially if the animal is endangered, which dinosuars technically still are.”
“I guess so.”
“Listen, you’ll find out eventually, yeah? Just go to sleep.” He settled back into the bed and kissed your cheek.
You rolled onto your back and stared at the ceiling again. Eli followed suit, rolling away from you. After a moment, you said, “Your boss used to work with John Hammond, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” Eli said groggily.
“I wonder if he ever helped with the dinosaur thing.”
“I dunno, maybe. You could probably ask him.”
You looked at Eli’s back, his broad shoulders covered in the thin gray material of his shirt. You rolled against him again, pressing your cheek to his warm back. “Sorry for waking you up.”
“It’s fine,” he mumbled.
You kissed him between the shoulders and then settled against the pillow, watching him. Before long, his breathing had evened out, his body relaxing. You were envious of how quickly he fell asleep.
The night passed by slowly, but you remained awake. Eli was probably right, but the idea of a new dinosaur was stuck in your mind. How did someone design a new dinosaur? You couldn’t just make one up – could you?
Maybe you’d take Eli up on his offer and ask his boss about it. After all, if anyone knew about what was happening in Jurassic World, it was probably the man who helped John Hammond get the project off the ground in the first place.
ecofeminism is the branch of feminism examining how like women, nature is taken advantage by the patriarchy and how in environmental issues, women are systematically denied voices. like women, man sees only the material gain from nature. like nature is seen as private property, women are seen as man's subservient property. like women, nature is an object of the scientific gaze rather than a participant in it.
like claire, the exploited woman, eli sees only the material gain from dinosaurs. man (wheatly) sees dinosaurs as objects to transport while woman (zia) shows empathy and cares for the injured along the way. man (eli, the congress, masrani global) views the dinosaurs only as property to be gained or lost. woman (claire) views the dinosaurs as living beings individually worthy of rights. just like the rights of women, only men are considered when discussing if dinosaurs should live or die. ian malcolm is consulted by the male juror while the women (claire, zia) run an underfunded grass roots campaign. like how women are relegated to the unpaid domestic sphere, the women are relegated to the dpg with elevators that don't fully open. because, like women's domestic labor, the dpg does not produce capital. it directly aims to disrupt it by arguing that nature is valued beyond what capital it can produce (just as they are feminist women using their feminist right to organize as activists).
like nature is a feminist issues, dinosaurs become an in-universe feminist issue.
there's a lot under discussed territory in how eli works as a narrative foil to claire in fallen kingdom. they are the seconds in command. the yes men to their capitalist boss. and it all comes to a head when eli confronts claire in the dungeon. he looks her in the eyes as she protests and says "you exploited a living animal. in a cage. for money. how is that different?"
and it's a beautiful mix of a half-correct point and an absolute strawman argument. he's correct in that claire is complicit in doing bad things to dinosaurs. she ran the park that made all these dinosaurs he took. he wouldn't have anything to steal if claire didn't make them first. but it's a strawman in that there's a key difference between someone who will reject profit when faced with the damage of it versus a man who shamelessly does it despite being fully aware.
claire is the optimistic view. eli is the pessimistic view. claire has remorse. she has, as she said in dominion, "a lot of regrets". it's something she would not do again, no matter the financial gain. and unlike eli, she believes there's a way to be better. with her mistakes in mind, her aim is to redeem herself and fix a problem. she's not content with throwing in the towel and accepting the world as evil and bad. she will improve the dinosaurs remaining years and she will educate the public about them.
eli is none of that. he saw an opportunity and he took it. when faced with how wrong he's been acting, he kills. he locks maisie away. he dismisses iris. he doubles down on his bad actions. eli sees no point in having remorse or regret for what he's doing. he got his. they should've been smarter or tried harder. he believes there's no way to make the world better, so he might as well make it worse for everyone else if it means his temporary time on it will improve. extinct animals have no rights. that's the core difference.
