#we almost had the Nublar Eight instead

[phantomdragoness]

It's honestly a bit mind-boggling to me to think Zach and Gray were so close to joining the Camp Fam. If circumstances were different, they would've been with the rest of them when the Indominous broke out, possibly even ended up stuck on the island as well, or could've been the reason the others got off the island with everyone else.

[aion-rsa]

Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous Ending Explained

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The following contains spoilers for Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous.

Netflix and Dreamworks’ newest animated series, Jurassic: World Camp Cretaceous, takes the mythology of the Jurassic World franchise and focuses on a group of teen characters, surviving among the dinosaurs when the park’s safety features fail. Under the conceit that the park’s newest initiative is a camp for teens, a diverse group of young adults arrive to experience the wonder of living dinosaurs. But when, midway through the series, everything goes wrong, the kids are left on their own, forced to evade a carnotaurus and the incredibly dangerous Indominus rex. 

Not knowing whether a second season is planned, the final episode ends in a completely different place from where viewers might expect. While no second season has yet been announced, it’s clear from the final moments of the last episode that the story isn’t finished. While that may have left viewers feeling unresolved, the show is certainly enough fun for watchers to hope the characters will return for a second season, revealing how they put their survival skills to good use.

Catching the Ferry

While the first three episodes do a lot to establish the characters and the setting, as well as how it fits into the franchise, it’s episode four that really ramps up the stakes toward Camp Cretaceous’s ending. In episode four, the Indominus rex escapes its enclosure, and everything falls apart. “Assets” (dinosaurs) all over the park are on the loose. The kids, after returning to find their camp buildings destroyed, decide to make their way to the main park. After trial and error, they discover that it looks like the park has been abandoned.

And then, at the end of episode six, the alarm sounds. Episode seven begins with the evacuation order: “All park goers must report to the south ferry docks for immediate evacuation. Last ferry departs in two hours.” The timer is on, and the kids have to cross a park filled with hostile dinosaurs to make it off the island.

Once that goal is set, everything becomes about speed and distance. With one injured camper (Yasmina, previously the fastest among them, hurts her ankle in a fall), one slow camper (Ben, who just isn’t as athletic as the rest of them), and one baby dinosaur (Bumpy, the ankylosaurus the kids saw hatch, who imprinted on Ben, and whom Ben won’t abandon), speed is a challenge. Add to that a carnotaurus that seems absolutely hell-bent on attacking these kids, and that goal seems almost impossible.

And yet, the kids keep that sense of hope that they’ll make it. Right up until they don’t.

After an epic final battle between the campers and their carnotaurus nemesis, they finally exit a sealed building out onto the docks and into the sunshine. It’s that sunshine that seals their doom: the two hour limit would have put them on the docks at night. They’ve lost so many hours in their trip across the park, running from predators, counting on vehicles that abandon them in the wrong parts of the park, that morning has arrived, and the park has evacuated without them.

But the campers have been through so much that they refuse to give up. “They’ll be back for us, won’t they?” asks one. Darius, who has become the de facto leader of the group, answers, “Of course they will. And until then, we’ve got each other.” Their belief—and what they’ve already survived—promises these viewers that the campers will make it until someone arrives.

Or, possibly, they’ll build an entire civilization of their own while the grown ups are gone. Take that, Lord of the Flies.

Ben’s Fall

“None of the kids are going to die,” I promised my ten year old as we binged the last four episodes of Camp Cretaceous, all the while thinking, Come on, Dreamworks, don’t let any of these kids die…

As part of the Jurassic World franchise, there are no surprises in Camp Cretaceous having a body count, even though it’s aimed toward a younger audience. Over the course of the eight episodes, several adults are killed or eaten by therapods—without ever showing the bodies on screen. There’s no real blood or gore, but the intensity of the action is high enough that younger viewers won’t need anything more to get their adrenaline pumping.

In the second to last episode, Ben, the shiest camper, who’s least likely to take risks, saves the day. He crawls along the top of a speeding monorail to drop into the engineer’s car and stop the train from colliding with a stopped car. It’s a huge moment of triumph for Ben, and it’s immediately followed by a pteranodon shattering the glass of the train car and knocking Ben out the window, about to fall to his doom.

When, at the beginning of the final episode, Ben’s hand is firmly gripped by Darius, who’s trying to haul him back into the train, you can almost believe he’s going to make it. There’s a second when their hands slip, but Darius grabs Ben’s wrist with both hands, and the music shifts. Everything’s going to be all right.

Which is when the show goes for a one-two punch: a pteranodon knocks right into Ben, and Darius just can’t catch enough of his friend to keep him from plummeting from the tracks. The kids stare in horror from behind a crouched Darius as Ben hangs in the air, still reaching up for the train.

Worse, when the kids abandon the train (because it’s taking them away from the south docks), they lose track of Bumpy, Ben’s ankylosaurus. They debate: do they go back to look for Ben and Bumpy? Do they keep heading toward their only hope of escaping the island? What’s the moral choice? It’s a deep moment for younger viewers, knowing that there is no right answer: of course it’s the right thing to go look for Ben, but if it costs everyone else their lives—especially if Ben has already died in the fall—then they can’t afford to make the right choice.

So the campers leave Ben and Bumpy to their fates, hearts heavy with regret, while they continue their escape.

But, thank you Dreamworks, I did not lie to my ten year old. In the final moments of an intense last episode, after the rest of the campers are somewhat safe and the screen has gone dark, the animation continues, and Bumpy appears on screen, hurrying to Ben’s side. The boy lies still… but then his fingers twitch. Roll credits.

It’s possible that Ben will rise from this accident and become an antagonist determined to get revenge on the rest of the teens for abandoning him. But it’s equally likely that the campers will go out to look for him, now that they’ve lost the time crunch, and there will be a happy reunion for all. Only season two can tell us!

Sammy and Manta Corp

Although readers familiar with Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park books may peg BioSyn as the company most likely to try to undermine InGen’s control over Isla Nublar and the science behind Jurassic World, the company that’s outed for corporate espionage in Camp Cretaceous is Manta Corp (possibly Manticore). In an effort to gain access to the technology being developed by Dr. Wu for InGen, Manta Corp blackmailed camper Sammy to become a spy. Sammy, a gregarious Latina who loves her huge ranch family and seems determined to become friends with everyone, is the least likely character to become a spy. She’s over the top, not under the table. And yet, it’s exactly those qualities that force her to spy in the first place.

Sammy cares deeply—for her family and her friends. Her family supplies all the meat used by Jurassic World, but they had to borrow money to get to where they are. And the people behind that money—Manta Corp—are determined to use every advantage to gain access to InGen’s technology. They tell Sammy’s family to send her to Camp Cretaceous to spy, or they’ll call their debt.

Sammy’s family refuses. Sammy sneaks off, determined to save her family from ruin.

When social media star Brooklyn catches Sammy spying in Dr. Wu’s office (more successfully than Brooklyn herself, who is caught), she doesn’t dwell on it. But when Brooklyn realizes she has video proof of Sammy’s spying, and her phone suddenly vanishes, Brooklyn is determined to call Sammy out.

Sammy’s equally determined to deny everything.

But when the stolen phone is discovered, broken, falling out of Sammy’s pocket, she has to face facts. She confesses everything, and loses the friendship of the camper she admires most.

At the end of the season, all the campers look well on their way to forgiving Sammy, but what will happen with Manta Corp? Will they arrive on the island, looking to retrieve whatever information their spy left behind? Or will they consider Sammy a loss, and look for another way to gain access to Isla Nublar? Odds are good that the threat of Manta Corp isn’t finished, and the teens will have to face them again in the future.

The Rescue

While this is probably the least precarious loose thread in Camp Cretaceous, viewers may wonder about the fate of Brooklyn’s social media channel, a major concern for a chunk of the series, will recover from the Internet randos who declare her “over.” When the superstar disappears, lost after the evacuation, will her fans come to the rescue? Will her disappearance be the thing that makes her a superstar again, or will she fade into obscurity? Likewise, Kenji’s wealthy family doesn’t seem to care much about him when he’s around, but when he’s missing, odds are good they’ll spare no expense to rescue their kid.

The most guaranteed team dedicated to rescuing the Camp Cretaceous campers is that of Dave and Roxie, their counselors, who’d intended to leave them for just forty-five minutes, and instead were never able to get back to them during the evacuation. Dave and Roxie do their best through the entire series to keep the teens out of trouble—an impossible proposition, even if the whole island hadn’t been evacuated. Remarkably, as the counselors follow the signal of the lost teens around the island, they never encounter the difficulties their campers do. Where the campers see the carnotaurus and have a dramatic encounter, Dave and Roxie see it off in the distance and manage to avoid an encounter entirely. When we last see the counselors, it’s on the back of an evacuation boat, with Roxie demanding that the security officer turn the boat around. Roxie, in fact, almost gets into a physical altercation with the security officer before Dave pulls her back. If anyone’s definitely determined to come to the rescue, it’s those two counselors, and even a mosasaurus won’t be able to stop them.

The faith that Darius pretends to have in those final moments—that of course someone will return for them—isn’t misplaced. Someone will be back for the kids.

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And until they return, at least the campers have each other.

The post Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous Ending Explained appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[write-stuff-for-life-blog]

Review: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

NOTE: I actually saw this movie in theaters but since it’s DVD release was yesterday I figured I’d post my review of it here. I might ramble on for several paragraphs in these reviews, especially if I feel strongly about something, so I’ll try and make it a point to post a short rating at the top as well as a more in depth one at the end.

NOTE THE SECOND: I don’t usually care about spoilers in these reviews so read at your own risk.

1 out of 5 stars. Only watch on Netflix if you exhaust all your other options.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is written by Colin Trevorrow (previous writer and director of the last entry in the franchise) and Derek Connolly and was directed by J.A. Bayona. Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard reprise their roles as Owen Grady and Claire Dearing respectively and are sent back to Isla Nublar by Jon Hammond’s previously never mentioned before former partner billionaire Ben Lockwood played by a James Cromwell who can barely bother to keep his eyes open throughout the movie. I, in fact, share that same sentiment.

Usually in these reviews I try to touch on all the aspects of said medium: visuals, camera work, writing, directing, acting, etc. But this review is going to focus mainly on the writing and acting because both are so atrocious all the other aspects are inconsequential. 

I didn’t think the first Jurassic World (JW) was as great as it needed to be for a soft reboot / revival of such a beloved franchise but it did have several memorable moments. The leads were charming enough to make you forget that they lacked meaningful character arcs (Claire does have one but the movie doesn’t care about it that much) and the action in the second half of the film was pretty cool (specifically T-Rex and Raptor and Giant Alligator Thing vs. the Indominus Rex). So for the second go around I was hoping that the filmmakers would take the time to really get it right and do the franchise justice. My hopes were far too high.

The only two performances that were worth anything in Fallen Kingdom (FK) were the two returning leads, Pratt and Howard. Howard is a decent enough actress but I’ve never seen a performance from her that I really love and FK continues that trend. Claire does undergo a change from shrewd, cold businesswoman to animal rights activist and that does give some depth to her character but it happens off screen during the three years between JW and FK. It was a little jarring at first but I swallowed it better when the film took a minute to explain her motivations. Pratt was as Pratt as ever as Owen is exactly the same through this movie as he was when we first met him in JW. I fear there’s a real risk for Pratt here as it seems as though he’s becoming another Will Smith or Tom Cruise. He is varying degrees of his usual charming and charismatic self in whatever project he appears in. Owen is just Pratt but outdoorsy to the extreme. Star-Lord is just Pratt with his ego turned up to eleven. Andy from Parks and Rec is just Pratt as a dumb man-child. And I guess that’s fine. Plenty of stars have made careers doing the same but actors actually stretching themselves and challenging themselves to become someone else will always be more impressive.

One thing that annoys me about modern blockbusters are their tendencies to inject new secondary characters into each following installment while completely ignoring the B cast from the previous entry. In the original Jurassic trilogy it did make some sense to do that as each sequel followed the branching lives of Ian Malcolm and Allen Grant who, we can presume, never encounter one another again after the first film. But here there’s little justification for it. JW’s comic relief characters Lowery and Vivian, played by capable comedy actors Jake Johnson and Lauren Lapkus respectively, are nowhere to be seen in this movie. Instead we have Franklin Webb, a spazzy tech guy played by Justice Smith, and Zia Rodriguez, a ball busting veterinarian played by Daniella Pineda. I don’t have much to say about Pineda, she was decent enough and served her purpose, but Smith … Oh my God. I believe this guy will go down in history as the absolute worst character in any Jurassic movie ever. Yes, he is even worse than every child character in all of the movies combined. He does nothing for the movie other than to scream in a high pitched voice when something scares him. Everything scares him. It’s always played for laughs but the joke falls flat on its face every time. The movie thinks it’s funny for a grown man to shriek in terror and scream out loud the thing that’s scaring him. “Lava!” “T-Rex!” “Social interaction!” All right, I made up that last one but the character is so cliché he might as well have said it. And what’s more there is no reason for this character to be here. The movie wastes a fine opportunity to bring back JW’s Lowery who was also a tech guy. In fact it even makes sense for him to run with Claire in her animal rights activism as he was a huge fanboy for Jurassic Park. He had toy dinosaurs all over his work station, he loves them! And it makes even more sense for him to return to Isla Nublar because he was familiar with the park’s computer systems. Why isn’t he joining Claire? He was courageous and had some genuinely funny interactions with Vivian. He certainly would have been better than Spazzy McScreamy.

Speaking of trends let’s talk about the obligatory child character. Isabella Sermon makes her big screen debut as Maisie Lockwood, Ben Lockwood’s granddaughter. Of all the new additions to the franchise she’s the standout as her performance has a depth and range most child actors would struggle to convey. Now one thing about the Jurassic movies is that their child characters were usually pretty capable in some way or another. Hammond’s granddaughter in JP reboots the computer system. Malcolm’s daughter in Lost World is able to gymnastic a raptor to death (yeah it’s a dumb scene but she saves her dad). The teenager in JP3 survives Isla Sorna alone for eight weeks. And the brothers in JW are able to fix a derelict jeep and rescue themselves. FK started out following this trend of capable children with Maisie … until it abandons the idea so we can have a “monster creeping through a child’s bedroom” scene. This completely undermined her whole character. Up until then the movie had established her as smart and independent and capable as hell. She snuck into the secret lab, spied and hid from the bad guys, busted out of her room which she’d been locked in, and climbed atop buildings all secretly by herself without help from a single grown up. But the minute the new hybrid dinosaur goes after her, which she had seen several times before then, she immediately forgets how capable she is and hides under her bed sheets. This might be the most heinous example of bad writing in this whole movie. Mixed messages? Okay, fine. Forgettable action sequences? Whatever, that’s most of Hollywood anyway. But please, for the love of God, have consistent characters!

Now the villains. Ugh.

BD Wong returns as the dastardly Dr. Henry Wu, the mastermind genius behind the dinosaur cloning process, the I-Rex, and FK’s new hybrid the Indoraptor.  It would seem that in the three years since JW InGen and its parent company Masrani Global have cut Wu loose as he’s now partnered with a new financier Eli Mills played by Rafe Spall, the CEO / director / executor of Ben Lockwood’s … estate? Company? Trust fund? I don’t remember the movie specifying what Mills’ job was, only that he was another white collar villain (because we haven’t seen that before in a Jurassic movie). Toby Jones makes an appearance as Mr. Eversol, an auctioneer for the high rolling criminal underworld, and Ted Levine plays Ken Wheatley, the leader of a disposable mercenary force who has an odd fetish for collecting dinosaur teeth. And that is literally all there is to the villains. Each of them is cartoonishly shallow to the point that Wheatley is a parody of an archetype and all Dr. Wu needs is a mustache to twirl. True, the villains have never been that big of a deal in the Jurassic movies as the dinosaurs have always been the main attractions but not even Vincent D’Onofrio’s Hoskins from JW was this bad and in a movie full of weakly written characters he was the weakest link.

And let’s not forget the dinosaurs. They are there. Not as much as you’d like but they’re around. The big draw for Owen this time around is to save Blue, the only surviving raptor from the pack he raised and trained, from Isla Nublar’s impending volcanic eruption. FK plays this up as though Blue was always the equivalent of a loyal attack dog but it conveniently forgets that JW established her as a dog capable and willing to bite the hand that fed her. The scene from the previous movie in which Owen is in the raptor enclosure is a tense moment because he is under threat from all the raptors, Blue included. In fact when the I-Rex persuades them to go after the humans all the raptors focus in on Owen. There was that one moment when Owen pulls off Blue’s head camera at the end of JW but to rewrite the relationship as though she were a loyal golden retriever, I feel like that was not earned in the slightest. And the main attraction this time is the new hybrid, the Indoraptor, essentially a smaller version of the previous movie’s I-Rex. FK presents this abomination of genetic manipulation as an ultimate monster but it really just looks like rejected concept art of the I-Rex. Also the Indoraptor is only in half of the movie. The I-Rex in JW was a better monster because it was terrorizing the island for almost the whole runtime. Plus the I-Rex has some decent build up and a good reveal. Here, it feels like the movie couldn’t be bothered. “By the way, we made another hybrid dino. Here it is.” I did enjoy the return of more practical animatronics over every dino being CGI but if you saw the last film this one doesn’t have anything special for you in that regard.

Let’s talk about Trevorrow’s writing. It’s awful. Like a pile of hot rancid garbage awful. The biggest problem with JW is that it completely ignores the moral of the original. JP was a cautionary tale that proves whenever man tries to exert his will over nature he will lose and just because we can do something it doesn’t mean we should. It’s classic man vs. nature ending with man being humbled. JW said, “Hey look, we’re going to keep doing that ethically questionable thing most people believe we shouldn’t be doing and wield the power of a god with no regards to any possible consequences,” and gets upset when the monster it created wreaks havoc. But does FK finally learn that lesson and try to take the franchise somewhere new that doesn’t lead the characters into being idiots who keep going back to the island? Do Michael Bay’s Transformers movies understand subtlety?

More than ever this movie has dumb characters making dumb decisions that nobody with a brain can follow. The villains want to capture the dinos and auction them off to billionaire criminals because these crime lords want them for pharmaceutical reasons (but why though?), the ability to hunt one like a big game hunter (because we also haven’t seen that before), or for weaponization. Let’s touch on that last point. The villains justify it by saying animals have been used in combat scenarios for centuries when armies rode to battle on horses and elephants. And the movie might have had a point if either one of those transportation methods hadn’t become outdated before the fifties.

Now just for the sake of argument I’ll list off a few more examples for this movie’s case: K-9 units, bomb detecting dolphins, and pidgins have all historically been used by one military or another at various times. But here’s the common thread among all those examples: none of those animals are predisposed to ripping a man’s head off in a single bite. Why do you think it isn’t common practice for a military to use lions and tigers and bears? And let’s take a closer look at the proliferation of working dogs and horses. Could it be that thousands if not millions of years of closely co-existing with humans have made them predisposed towards not killing us on sight? What’s that called? Oh yeah. Domestication!

Whether we’re talking about fiction or not, training an animal that never co-existed with humans so it can become an attack animal is not a good idea any way you slice it. Any semi-intelligent person can recognize that there are way too many variables to take into account. Oh but what about Blue, I hear you asking. Owen proved that raptors can be trained with Blue. That may be true but one successful instance against a multitude of failures does not prove the concept. Sure the Polish Supply Brigade around WWII kept a bear named Wojtek that would carry their supplies for them but you don’t see cargo bears being implemented throughout the world’s militaries these days. Do you know why? Because they’re freaking bears! They could go in for a playful swipe and nick your carotid by accident you MORONS!

And that leads me to this movie’s message. Apparently FK believes these animals have as much right to life as any other endangered species. That’s the whole reason Claire wants to go back so she can save them. But the film is bookended with Jeff Goldblum reprising his role as Ian Malcolm speaking before a congressional committee on how much that is a bad idea. He argues that nature selected the dinos for extinction millions of years ago and bringing them back was a mistake. The volcano erupting and eradicating the clone dinos on Isla Nublar, he says, is nature’s way of correcting that mistake. So the film opens and closes arguing why protecting these creatures from a second extinction is the worst. And yet we spend most of the runtime doing exactly that.

Seriously?

Malcolm has always been the ultimate voice of reason in these movies and we as an audience are inclined to agree with him given the proof each movie provides for his argument. There are four previous films illustrating why bringing the Earth’s most dangerous predators back to life is a horrible idea. And now that nature wants to correct the mistake you’re going to defy that decision?

The film uses Maisie here to make this case. The dinos are technically clones and we learn that Maisie is a clone as well so now we’re using clone rights to justify saving the dinosaurs. It is a weak argument thrown in at the last moment. Arguing for conservation is good and all but how well are you going to side with that argument when the T-Rex is meandering through a neighborhood gobbling up pedestrians left and right? These animals have lived on an island their entire lives. Aside from T-Rex who visited San Diego in the 90s they have never seen a town. The only human made structures they are familiar with were the derelict park buildings that the movie shows them waltzing through all the time. Even our own real world wild animals don’t understand that they should stay away from human settlements, how well do you think Blue is going to do the first time she’s caught in the headlights? But apparently they have a right to live because they are just as alive as Maisie the clone is so let’s end the movie by releasing all these dangerous animals, most of which are as large as a rhino or elephant, into the American countryside.

Sure, forget about public safety. Forget that dinosaurs had their chance but nature selected them for extinction over sixty million years ago. Forget about all the indigenous plant and wildlife that is now under threat because you just loosed at least eleven different dinos onto the world. Forget about how their nesting habits might destroy the landscape like nutria in Louisiana. What was your motivation again? Conservation? Give me a break.

Honestly this movie makes me glad Trevorrow was fired from Star Wars Episode Nine. This proves that he has no clue what decent writing looks like and has no regard for what the original was trying to say. Just because he was given the opportunity to make these films doesn’t mean he should have.

 1 star out of 5

A forgettable and messy film that slowly meanders through the second and third act with no sense of purpose other than to say, “Ooooh look. It’s a dinosaur!” And it doesn’t even say that well.

[prosciuttoe]

Hi! So for the prompt thing, I recently just watched raiders of the lost ark and I could definitely see bellamy as an adventuring archaeologist/professor OR doing like a type of the mummy au except where bellamy is the librarian and clarke is his guide....or something? idk up to you completely if you feel like writing something along those lines. Thanks!

A|N: I decided to go with archaeologist!Bellamy, or to be more accurate, palentologist!Bellamy because I’m such a sucker for Jurassic Park. 

__________________________

Generally, Bellamy’s job description doesn’t involve dealing with billionaires and their hotshot lawyers, and yet here they are.

“For the last time,” he huffs, his arm curling instinctively around her waist to haul her away from the excavation site, “I’m really not interested in advocating some theme park for extinct animals, okay?”

“Dinosaurs,” the girl- Clarke, he reminds himself- tells him, her mouth twisting into a frown. “And why wouldn’t you? Look, I don’t know what you’ve been told, but Jurassic Park is going to be a revolutionary experience. Thelonious Jaha has—”

“Jurassic Park?” he manages, a derisive laugh escaping. “Yeah, that’s the final nail in the coffin. I’m not advocating anything that sounds as if they sell brachiosaurus shaped churros out front.”

The crinkle between her brows deepens at that, and he tries not to appear too smug at having gotten to her. “It’s actually triceratops shaped, and they’re marshmallows.”

“So you guys couldn’t even get churros? That’s rough.”

She spins on her heel, stepping cleanly into his path and forcing him to stop short. “Look, Dr. Blake. You’re leaving this site in about two weeks, right?”

He stares, biding his time as he weighs the possible ways in which she could twist his answer into a less than ideal situation for him. Fucking lawyers.

“Yeah,” he says with exaggerated slowness, bracing himself for a fight. “So what?”

“So,” she goes, mimicking his tone, “tie up your loose ends, and I’ll personally escort you down to Isla Nublar after, where I’m sure Thelonious will be more than happy to discuss the possibility of funding your paleontological dig for the next three years.”

It’s hard to conceal his shock at that, though he does try his damn hardest. Dusting his hands off on his pants, he pretends to consider it for all about three seconds before he bites out, “It’ll be about two weeks.”

The obnoxious tilt of her chin makes him feel as if she’s the one issuing the challenge, instead. “Fine.”

“It means you’re going to have to stay here on site for two weeks, Princess.” He sneers, deliberately running his gaze from the office blouse she has tucked into her pencil skirt down to the delicate heels strapped around her ankles. “Sure you can handle it?”

Her smile is saccharine sweet; practiced. “I don’t think I’m going to be much of a problem, Dr. Blake.”

It’s impossible to miss the little jibe she made there, but Bellamy decides to let it slip anyway. “If you’re sure, Ms. Griffin.” He smirks, accompanying it with a mocking bow. “Make yourself at home.”

+

He catches her trying (valiantly) to pitch a tent a few hours after; heels sinking in the sand and immaculate updo a mess on the top of her head.

“Shouldn’t someone tell her,” Miller interjects, mild, “that we have trailers to stay in?”

“Nah,” he grins, watching as the unsecured poles sway and clatter back to the ground, her frustrated half-shout lost in the wind. “I think she’s having fun. Maybe it’ll help dislodge the stick up her butt.”

The look Miller shoots his way is pointed. “You do realize that this is the girl that’s supposed to assist us with getting funded for the next couple of years, right?”

“Uh huh.”

“So shouldn’t we be making sure that she gets out of this alive?” he goes, exasperated. “And like, make her experience here as pleasant as possible? Considering she’s the one with the connections to Jaha?”

He can’t help the snort that escapes at that, directing his attention back to the chisel in his hand. “She’s just a messenger. Plus, I’m pretty sure he’ll give us the funding as long as I give their stupid theme park five stars on Yelp, or something.”

“Right,” Miller nods, thoughtful. Then in a voice that’s way too innocent for his liking, “So, it’s not likely that she’ll rescind the invitation at all, right?”

“Not when they need me.” He snaps, though he can’t help sneaking a quick peek over at her. She’s gotten the poles secured this time, at least, though she seems to be struggling to get it upright with the howling of the wind. The look of grim determination on her face would be comical, if he didn’t already know how brutal the winds could get at this time of the year.

Scowling, Bellamy rubs at his face, gets to his feet. “Don’t start,” he mutters darkly, stomping over to her and flipping Miller off when he begins to laugh.

+

Surprisingly enough, she doesn’t stay cooped up in her trailer like he expects her to.

It’s not like he wants to notice her, really, but she tends to be a conspicuous presence; all infectious, lilting laugh and bright hair gleaming under the sunlight. It takes her a matter of days to charm almost everyone else on site, which annoys him for reasons that he can’t really fathom. Even Raven has taken to her, for fuck’s sake, and she hates about ninety eight percent of the entire human population.

(Fine, maybe he’ll admit that it’s a little unnerving that she’s turned this supposed charm on for everyone else but him. Not that he’s keeping track, or anything, but considering the way she glared at him when he helped himself to second servings this morning? Yeah. Nothing’s changed on that front.)

He’s dusting off what possibly might be a velociraptor skull when she plops down next to him, drawing her knees up to her chest. “Dr. Blake.”

“Griffin,” he says tightly, sparing her a quick glance before getting back to work. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Not much,” she shrugs, running her fingers idly over the series of brushes he has lined up next to him. “I just came over to see what you’re working on.”

Arching a brow over at her, he sets his brush down on his knee. “I didn’t think you were interested in fossils.”

“I’m a lawyer for someone who’s opening up a dinosaur-themed amusement park,” she says, in a voice that suggests the statement be followed up with a pointed duh. “You’d think I’ll do that if I had no interest in dinosaurs whatsoever?”

“Honestly?” he snorts, raking his gaze over her once more. She’s changed, though he’s pretty sure the clothes aren’t hers from the way they hug to her every curve. Her skin is pink from the sun, a splattering of freckles evident against the side of her jaw, and he tries not to think about how nice she looks with her hair loose. “Yeah, probably. I don’t have a very high opinion of lawyers.”

That pulls a disgruntled noise from her. “Oh, yeah. You definitely kept that under wraps. Couldn’t tell at all.”

“Shut up,” he grouses, bumping his elbow against hers. “Besides, it’s not like you made the best first impression. You came down in a copter, which disrupted our work for an whole hour. You started off your pitch by telling me how lucky I was to be hand-picked by Jaha.”

Clarke makes a noise of mock-outrage at that, slapping at his arm lightly. “Please. I had a script to follow, okay? I didn’t think you’d take it that personally.”

“Well, I’m really in touch with my feelings.”

“Duly noted,” she deadpans, rolling her eyes at him. “Though to be entirely honest, Jaha wasn’t the one who picked you. I did.”

He frowns, turning over to look at her. “You did?”

“Yeah.” She says briskly, averting her gaze. “I looked at a bunch of files, and I thought you were the best candidate. I mean, you weren’t under consideration before, but I added you in because of the paper you wrote, and—”

“You read my papers?” he laughs, grinning when her cheeks pink in response.

“Fine, I did.” She mumbles, folding her hands in her lap. “So, uhm. Maybe your paper on viewing dinosaurs as cultural icons is what made me decide to approach Jaha in the first place.”

It’s a little hard to keep his smile from showing at this point, and he finds himself trying to catch her eye despite her sudden shyness at being caught out. “Wow. I can’t believe my own impact, sometimes.”

“It was a really well-written paper,” she argues, crossing her arms over her chest. Then, a little dramatically, “Too bad the author is kind of a dick.”

Whistling, he picks the brush up once more, twirling it between his fingers cockily. “You’re just mad because you revealed yourself to be one of my groupies.”

“You wish, Bellamy Blake.”

The rest of the afternoon passes exactly like this; bickering and talking and maybe a little flirting, too, and by the end of it, he’ll willingly admit that maybe he can see the appeal that Clarke Griffin has going for her.

(Okay fine, he definitely gets the appeal now.)

+

He doesn’t object when she starts joining them during digs, snapping photos or dusting off fossils right alongside him; her brows furrowed in concentration and tongue poking out from between teeth. Besides, she’s pretty helpful, and it’s nice for him to be able to talk about his discoveries at length without worrying about boring her. She starts joining him during mealtimes, too, always settling in next to him like she belongs there; to the point where he starts looking for her when she doesn’t show up.

If he was being totally and entirely honest with himself, he’d admit that they’re sort of- kind of- friends, now. Or fun work colleagues, at least.

It’s probably why he can’t help feeling a little excited about the whole Jurassic Park venture, even though he’s willingly spending hours stranded in a tiny, cramped helicopter. Swallowing, he adjusts at his seatbelt; his pulse skipping erratically when she reaches over to adjust the headphones clamped over his ears, grinning.

“Ready for this, Dr. Blake?”

He’s not sure what possesses him to say it, really, but he finds himself telling her, “It’s Bellamy, okay? Just— stop being all formal, already.”

Her grin is fucking blinding under the light of the rapidly setting sun, and he’s not sure if the swoop he feels in his stomach is in reaction to her or the jerk of the copter as it begins to ascend in the sky.

“Clarke,” she says, mock-solemn, a small smile playing on her lips as she offers her hand out to shake. “And now we have that out of the way— you ready to go?”

He can’t help squeezing at her palm when he slides his fingers against hers; warm and reassuring and filled with some sort of possibility that makes him grin stupidly at her. “Bombs away, Clarke.”