✨Orion✨

like what is this. what is this picture.

ellie smiling politely while her two boyfriends take up an indecent amount of space in the fruitiest positions I have seen in my life ever. hey they can’t sit straight it’s almost as if they’re uh. not. straight. really though I think it’s funny that laura dern is like actually trying to smile for the promo picture and y’know. sitting down in a sane fashion meanwhile sam neill and jeff goldblum are like: (see figure 1 above.) and literally did someone tell them to do that. was this part of the plan. or did they just do that. what happened here. even the framing of it is poly like what about this does not say Polycule Portrait 1993. I’m crying please it’s just. this can’t be real how I did not notice it before.

Obviously, there are Eridian kids with special needs, and a few of them even filter into his classes. But one specific type of special needs kid has never shown up in his classes, and the only reason he even learned of the condition is because Rocky and Adrien's first pebble has the condition.

It's initially quite a struggle for them to deal with, and Grace sympathizes of course, because the child will apparently have huge learning and academic struggles and will likely never be able to live on their own. That is, until he learns the details of the disability.

Basically, it's a condition where the part of the Eridian brain that gives them their eidetic memory isn't fully developed, and so these kids just... can't remember things the way most eridians do. And in a culture where an eidetic memory is the norm, all things cater to that, so not having that is actually a massive disability.

But Grace is like, so... this kid just learns the same way a human does, or something like. Which is nothing new to him, though he is somewhat boggled at how much Rocky and Adrian struggle with their infant and their "slow" learning curve, even as far as initial developmental stages. Grace, on the other hand, simply treats the kid the same way he would a human infant, and Rocky and Adrien are impressed with his patience.

But, through this, it occurs to Grace that there must be other kids out there with this disability who likely aren't getting the attention and chances in life that they deserve, because Eridian culture is particularly hostile toward this disability, and actively views those with it as unable to function in regular society.

So Grace demands that a special course be put together where he teaches kids with this disability specifically. Rocky is hesitant, as most kids with this disability are home schooled and kind of... kept shut away. But Grace insists and as one of Erid's saviors, he gets what he wants eventually.

His first class is super small, maybe only three kids because so few parents were willing to advertise that their children have this disability. And because of the stigma around it, even those who agreed to it are super unsure and want to be present during the lessons, perhaps paranoid about the impression it will leave on Savior Grace, who is so accustomed to only teaching the most gifted students.

But Grace knows exactly how to deal with these kids. Some of them have varying degrees of function when it comes to their memory banks, which isn't so unlike teaching kids on earth. And so Grace is able to introduce all these tools and teaching techniques that were previously unheard of on Erid (though very normal on Earth) like having textbooks for reference with you at all times and having strategies that are less focused on memorization for understanding, and providing these kids with tools like calculators and teaching them the art of taking notes to look back on, etc etc.

Suddenly, with all these tools that most Eridians don't need, these kids are learning at a much faster rate, and succeeding with the help of all their little tools. And because so many normal eridians are ignorant of Grace's actual biology, it's shocking to them that Savior Grace doesn't have an eidetic memory either (shocking to everyone but Rocky anyway)--that his brain functions quite similarly in capacity to these "disabled" children.

Once this news gets around, suddenly there's more kids in his special classes, and there's all kinds of discourse being inflamed because the real reason these kids can't live on their own or function is lack of support from Eridian society.

If Savior Grace, who is well respected as a genius in his own right amongst the Eridians, can function so successfully, they why can't these kids?

I was so taken by the image of 20-30 pebbles activating in unison that I had to draw it immediately

and then thinking about all the people who call her cold or uncaring or clinical about what she has to do to save earth. eva stratt, who had silly t-shirts and vodka and favorite meals stored in the Hail Mary and treated with the same level of importance as the finely tuned equipment and the centrifuge the entire planet relies on for salvation.

and then thinking about eva stratt nodding and saying, “yeah, I’m pretty awful. that’s why i’m in charge” with a neutral expression and even believing it. as if crafting the most beautiful coffin and homage to her soon-to-be dead friends won’t haunt her always.

thinking about eva stratt being the first person on the “eva stratt is a monster” train, welcoming ryland grace aboard and knowing she believed in him more than anyone else.

But the restaurant he went to every Thursday knew him and his friend by name and had their orders put in before they sat down.

But the diner that he went to every morning before work looked forward to seeing him.

But his students, who he spent years cultivating a safe space for and taking pride in being a teacher they could trust and who were the only reason he went back and demanded to work on the project.

No, he didn’t have a dog. But he did have a routine filled with people he wanted to go back to.

yeah, there's that (which is present in the film & book) as well as how (book specific) Wu also cares deeply enough to routinely check w the animals; he knows their health histories, he looks after them as hatchlings before they're shipped off to Sorna to grow, etc. and he also outright agrees w Muldoon's need/want for military equipment for safety AND is the only one who campaigns to make the animals slower and LESS intelligent, as well. routinely, Wu shows great care for BOTH the animals & the people on the island, but is routinely shot down by Hammond time and time again.

it's also explicitly mentioned that Wu has been working for Hammond literally since graduate school, which means that at 33, that's very likely a LARGE portion of his adult life that he's been isolated from others, told that he was doing great things for the rest of the world - which are all classic signs of grooming. Hammond professionally groomed Wu, but isn't it funny that, esp online/in fandom spaces, it's WU who's constantly demonised? (I wonder why 🤔 esp considering that if Wu were a white man, he would be GIVEN the grace of nuance, but somehow he never is & is consistently boiled down to "evil scientist" tropes despite NEVER actually matching that trope beyond online spaces)

we also have the Jurassic World sequels as well, and how it's VERY CLEAR that the grooming didn't actually stop until Dominion; time and time again, Wu is essentially FORCED to choose btwn his own survival/job security, and doing what rich capitalists want him to do but then also forced to take the BRUNT of backlash when the creations that said capitalists MADE HIM CREATE turn out more or less full Frankensteins Lizard. it's only once we reach Dominion that we see that Wu has actually been given the chance to conceptualise and work through what he's been through for the majority of his adult life - which isn't uncommon of people who have been groomed into professions/cults/etc, either. sometimes it takes years to unpack all of that, and Wu is merely a singular portrayal of that exact event in Dominion.

Yes!!! Wu and Muldoon’s care for the raptors is why the wild ones on Nublar turn out okay!! They are well adjusted because of both of them, but I’m going to give more credit to Wu because he’s probably more involved. He does see them as his magnificent creations and accordingly treats them well, but knows their limits too (like advocating for the safer versions). He never priotizes the dinosaurs over the safety of the people on the island, and more or less the second he is given the chance to jump ship to team Alan Grant (so to speak) he does.

Oh it totally is, it’s been the last five or so years of his life at the start of the story. And Hammond RECRUITED HIM AFTER HIS MENTOR’S FUNERAL WHILE WU WAS IN OBVIOUS DISTRESS. Book!Hammond really is the worst!! Oh he definitely was professionally groomed (and yeah, Wu definitely *should* fit the redemption tropes for most people yet they don’t give him that grace, especially when they often do for worse characters who are white men). I’d go so far as to say in the book he’s a deconstruction of the mad scientist trope!!!!

Yeah, that makes sense!! People were DEFINITELY manipulating him up until Dominion when he finally sees what’s going on. I do think that the way the World movie’s characterize him is a big factor in his perception, because they TRY to frame him as the mad scientist up until Dominion imo, playing up the more mad scientist angles until they decided not to.

Wu’s definitely a victim in so many ways, and has been forced into some awful situations. I wish they never really leaned into the mad scientist angle in the films, I LOVE how he’s written to deconstruct all of that in the book, and find it genuinely subversive even to this day.At one point, Ian Malcolm (who is pretty clearly the moral authority in the book) point blank says something like “he’s not evil he’s misinformed” and that really shows clear it is clear even to someone as horrified by the situation as Malcolm that Wu wasn’t the problem, not really, and he always had the potential to be part of the solution.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/58733143