897: Life with Raptors – Chapter One

Title: Life with Raptors
Author:   AwesomeHunter77
Media: Movie
Topic: Jurassic Park
Genre:  Humor/Drama
URL: Life with Raptors
Critiqued by TacoMagic and Eliza

Welcome back patrons.  As promised, today we’re embarking on another larger project.  I was originally planning on doing something else, but I’ve since decided that it’s a bit too topical right now and might freak people out.  Plus, there are a lot of triggers, and, frankly, I’m still calming down from Jedi’s Destiny.  I need something that doesn’t require me to put warning tags all over it.  So what do I have that fills that requirement?  Well, I actually have two things, and I’ll be doing them both, but to start, I’m going to take a look at Life with Raptors.

Life with Raptors is a fic inspired by Raptor and I.

I’ll give that a minute to sink in.  A fic based on a really, really horrible fic.  This is going to be From Another World all over again, isn’t it?  Luckily Life with Raptors is a lot less objectionable than Raptor and I; primarily because it’s so damn vague and doesn’t really go anywhere.

Anyway, since we’re once again riffing a raptor story, I figured I’d get one of the feathered duo in here to help me out.  Crunchy is busy helping Herr with something, so I’ve asked Eliza to sit in on this one with me.

“I hope you aren’t planning on trying to put me into this fic as well.”

That was one isolated incident!  And it worked out all-right in the end.

“YOU weren’t the one who almost got put back into Raptor and I.  You never even apologized for it.”

…

Is THAT what this has all been about?  Eliza, I’m sorry I tried to put you back into Raptor and I.  It was a poorly-thought out plan to maintain the continuity of a fic not worth saving and I was wrong for doing it.

“Thank you, Taco, apology accepted.”

You’re still going to pelt me with pies, aren’t you?

“Of course.  That’s our thing now.”

*Taco sighs*

Anyway, let’s start out as we always do with the summary.  Unlike a lot of the fics I’ve done recently, this one actually is a summary!

A girl that needs to get her credentials for college and is working on Isla Nublar is stuck after the storm. Her only protection? An alpha raptor and his pack. Is it enough to keep her alive until she’s rescued?

As you can see, pretty much straight-up plot copy from Raptor and I.  There are some nuanced differences, but not enough to really hide the fact that this is a straight rip of the fic that inspired it.

To start, we get your standard unnecessary author’s note:

(Ok. I’m going to start by saying that the character named May is not based from Pokémon, I made up a random name and realized it was from Pokémon, but I’m too lazy to make another.

I have no idea why you thought this was necessary to say, author.  May is a name outside the Pokémon franchise so it’s not that outlandish to think you just picked it.  Even if it WAS inspired by Pokémon, it’s a common enough name that it doesn’t matter where the name came from.

And why the hell are you telling us that you’re too lazy to make a change to your fic?

“Authors that self-proclaim themselves as too lazy to make corrections are always a good sign.”

Inspired by The Raptor and I, by , but my story is slightly different.)

If nothing else, the honesty is refreshing.  Usually you have to get into a heated argument with an author before they’ll admit to stealing material.

May’s POV

“Ghostcat will be extremely pleased to see that.”

Maybe you should let Ishi know to break out the chocolates with the sedatives in them.

“Way ahead of you, Taco.  I’ve got a candygram heading to her room as we speak.”

Who did you get to do a candygram in an underground bunker?

“Gumdrop is always looking for a reason to dance and sing for people.  Thought I’d put it to use.”

I was actually able to wake up from my sleep without Arnold or Gerry getting me up to look after one of the dinosaurs.

So, you woke on your own without one of your bosses having to wake you up?

*Slow clap*

Congratulations, what an accomplishment.

But no sooner had I got up, my radio came to life.

“I must remember to tell Goeth not to play with my Allspark while we’re riffing.”

YOU HAVE AN ALLSPARK!?

“Of course, it was a birthday present.”

“May! Are you up? MAY!” Arnold’s muffled voice came over the radio. He must’ve been smoking.

As an employer, if you find yourself having to constantly ask if your employees have gotten themselves up for their shifts, you need better hiring practices.

“Or a loud siren.”

Or a loud siren.

“Yes, I’m up, hello to you too.” I said as I stood up from bed.

“Arnold needs to tighten up the discipline of his troops.  He’s headed to a bad case of insubordination at this rate.”

You’ve been hanging out with Swenia too much.

“You wouldn’t begrudge us our girls’ night, would you?”

Well, I suppose not.

“GREAT!  You can watch Jiwe while we go shoot skeet!  Thanks, Taco, you’re the best!”

… what just happened?

“Just get your butt down to the Triceratops and Gallimimus pen, one of the Gallimimus’ tripped and broke its arm after landing on it and Gerry is busy taking care of the Dilophosaurus.” Arnold explained.

Well look at that, the author is correctly capitalizing all the dinosaur species names.  Almost worth a redemption cookie just for getting that right.

“Won’t it like, I don’t know. Spit in his face and eat it?” I asked.

Well, if this version of Jurassic Park has the same woefully inadequate safety measures as found in Raptor and I, then yes, that is the most likely scenario.

“It’s out could, now go and take care of the Gallimimus.

“It’s out what now?”

Misspelling of cooled.  They iced it down.

“You lie with such an innocent face, you know that?”

It’s not hard to miss, she has green stripes on her back, legs, and neck.”

Not to mention it would probably be in either the Gallimimus pen or the veterinary pens.  Hard to miss when it’s exactly where it should be.

“Got it.” I said.

Arnold was lucky I had gotten some good sleep last night, something rare for me.

So, add “insomnia” as a possible trait to the list.  We’ll see if it ever comes up again.

“Got it.”

But we’re getting ahead.

Of…

 Hello! I’m May, I came to this island to get my credentials for college, since I want to be a vet, practicing on living, breathing dinosaurs may give me some much needed training.

*Facepalm*

Yes, I’m sure the owners of the extremely secret dinosaur theme-park was just falling all over themselves to offer high-school students a chance to work on dinosaurs.

“I was thinking of starting a ‘prod-the-tiger’ day at the zoo.  We give a bunch of high school students some sticks and let them into the tiger pen.  They get ‘credentials’ for college if they can poke the tiger.  We could charge extra to anyone visiting the zoo that day, too.”

You’ve been hanging out with Crunchy too much.

I quickly got my clothes for the day ready and took a quick shower. The hot water felt good on my aching body, which would only hurt more after today, all the dinosaurs always got sick or hurt.

Horrible zoo if you’re having constant illness and injury.

“To be fair, Jurassic Park was pretty poorly designed and run even in the novel canon.”

Hmm, fair enough.

I sighed at the thought as I got out of the shower, dried off, and got into my clothes.

As I hurried down the stairs to get to work, I ran into the boss himself, John Hammond, who created the park.

“UH OH!” I yelled as I grabbed his hand and pulled him from falling down the stairs.

This kid is like a walking OSHA citation.

“Sir, I’m so sorry, I’m just in a hurry to get to the-” I started, but he stopped me.

“May, my child. I understand, Gerry told me about the Gallimimus. Go ahead.” He said as leaned up against the rail.

“When did Hammond become a priest?”

Ech.  I can see dialogue is not on the list of things this fic will be doing well.

“Thank you sir!” I said as I gave him a quick hug and hurried away.

Hugging your boss is kind of weird, but Movie Hammond was painted as an eccentric old man with a Walt Disney complex; so this is allowable.  Pushing the boundaries of canon, but allowable.

He chuckled. “Such an energetic child.” He said before continuing on.

“I have to wonder why he is letting an ‘energetic child’ handle a fractured arm of a Gallimimus.”

It wouldn’t be a proper author insertion if she wasn’t also a raging Mary Sue.

At the Triceratops pen…

*Twitch Twitch*

So much setting.  It’s like I’m actually there.

*Twitch Twitch*

“I see she stole the POV and scene tags from Raptor and I, along with the plot.”

I swiped my card in the scanner and walked into the enclosure.  It wasn’t long before I heard a loud screeching.   “Quite an annoying species.” I said as I followed the sound to a Gallimimus tending to its arm, and the rest of the herd resting nearby.

“Why is the Gallimimus in with the Triceratops?”

Don’t you know?  Triceratops are great for the healing process.  Elixers of the Jurassic, they’re called.  Just apply a Triceratops to an injury or sickness, and it goes away almost as if by magic.  I thought you were supposed to be the expert?

“I was raised by humans so my practical knowledge is not quite up to par with what Crunchy knows.”

Yeah, but he makes up a lot of stuff.

I approached slowly, holding some treats in my hand. “Here girl.” I said as I approached.

Zoo veterinarian-ing, you are doing it wrongest.

She sniffed my hand and pecked the treats out of my hand.   I then placed more on the ground so it was distracted while I splinted its arm.

*Facepalm*

Forgiving the fact that some idiot is letting a high-school (or potentially college, it’s vague as to what “credentials for college” is supposed to mean) student work on an animal without direct supervision, YOU DON’T SPLINT A WILD ANIMAL’S LIMB WITHOUT SEDATION!  Splinting hurts quite a bit, especially if you still need to set the bone, and wild animals are not known for calm reactions to pain.  Hell, even domestic animals have to be sedated for that kind of thing.

It started to eat the treats and it gave me the chance to fix up its arm.

“Luckily she had a Triceratops nearby.”

I quickly pulled out my kit and got out the bandages and wood splints. I pushed down on its back so it would lay down, which it did ungrudgingly, and I grabbed the arm that was hanging lower than the other and placed the wood on the inside and outside on its arm. Then wrapped it in the bandage and taped it down. It would fall off in about a month.

Uh, kiddo, you had one job and you forgot to set the bone.

I finished just in time, because it bolted up after its herd as they started to run around.

IT WASN’T EVEN PENNED!?

“I did mention that Jurassic Park was pretty terrible at zoo protocols.”

I didn’t think they were this bad.

Author, before you write, do at least a few minutes of research, or preferably, several hours worth.  You’ll look a lot less stupid if you have some clue as to the subjects you’re attempting to write about.

“May! Are you done with that giant chicken yet?” Arnold yelled over the radio, causing said “giant chicken” and flock stampeded away.

“Ironically, this is reasonable.”

How so?

“Gallimimus means ‘chicken mimic’ in Latin.”

“Yes, I’m done with the GALLIMIMUS!” I said.

*GONG*

No capslock in the story!

“Good, because now that same raptor that you’ve taken care of a hundred times was climbing up the side of their pen and fell and broke its leg.” Arnold said.

“This is why you don’t fix your dinosaur DNA with fragments of paper-mâché.”

InGen is the forefront of wood-pulp based DNA reconstruction.

“Oi. What is up with that raptor?” I asked to myself as I left the Trike and Galli enclosure for the Raptor enclosure.

Well, the dinosaurs would probably be a lot healthier if they hired Veterinarians rather than high-school students looking for ‘college credentials.’

“Do we ever figure out what that means?”

Nope.

Meanwhile, in the Raptor Pen…

Seth’s POV

YARG!

*Taco falls out of his chair and thrashes on the ground*

“Such a drama-llama.”

“Seth, you’ve taken this too far.” My friend Max said to me as I laid on the side that didn’t have my hurt leg.

Don’t you just hate that friend who waits until after you’re hurt to tell you that you shouldn’t have done something?

“Max. She’s really kind, and she gives me really tasty treats. Stick around and you’ll see what I mean.” I said before I heard footsteps.

“Did the author just reduce my kind to an overblown version of a house cat!?”

Down, kitty!

“Do you want me to start experimenting with Habanero pies?”

No, ma’am.

I shooed Max away and turned my head to the door. And…She walked in. She was physically recognizable due to her dark brown hair and grass green eyes.

So that’s the only thing that sets he apart from the others?  Brown hair and green eyes?

“I find it believable. You monkeys all look alike to me.”

But you always manage to pie me and nobody else.  How do you tell us apart.

“Smell.  If there’s one things you mammals are really good at, it’s producing a wide range of unique and interesting odor.”

Thanks?

I acted like a “feral” animal and growled and curled up, just to act like I wasn’t used to her.

What is he trying to insinuate with “feral” quoted like that?

“He probably knows his act isn’t fooling anyone.”

“Don’t worry boy, I haven’t hurt you before, I won’t hurt you now.” She said in that beautiful voice.

Oh for crap’s sake.  Not the formatting shenanigans again.

“Another thing she stole from Raptor and I.”

Why is she stealing all the crappiest parts!?

Then, Max had to ruin it and stepped out of the bushes. Causing her to flinch in fear.

Clever-

*A tet of water comes flying into the Snark Control Room and nails Taco in the back of the head.*

“I bought Crunchy a new super-soaker, by the way.”

I raised my head feathers in a warning signal, and he backed up a little.

Look at that, she got the feathers thing right.

“Are you sure this is a badfic?  It’s not good, but it’s not as bad as it could be.  She’s correctly spelling and capitalizing dinosaur names and realizes that they have feathers.  Does this thing really deserve to be in the Library?”

*Taco shows Eliza a quick peak of chapter 2*

“I retract my question.”

 I was the leader of my pack, but I had no dominant female.

Thanks for telling us that.  Could you show us something, now?

I was saving that for a special female.

“Maybe it’s just me, but this foreshadowing doesn’t seem to be all that subtle.”

Well, we could tone it down a bit and just use the foreshadowing rail-gun instead.

“Hmm. I think that might be a tad too subtle for the author.”

All of a sudden I felt a pain in my leg.

And that’s unexpected for some reason?

“Maybe she should have brought a Triceratops with her.”

I screeched in pain and looked down, only to find my leg being splinted and bandaged.   And Max watching intently.

At least this time the author remembered that having a broken bone splinted hurts a bit.

“She still forgot to set the bone and anesthetize the patient, though.”

Well, maybe she’ll settle for anesthetizing the audience because this is already pretty boring.

She was done quickly, and dropped the dark brown balls in front of me. I ate them quickly and cooed in satisfaction.

“Delight in GeneriCorp brand Flavored Treats™.  Now rounder and more brown than ever before!  Triceratops approved.”

As she was about to leave, I got up quickly and blocked the door.

Huh, and now a scene ripped straight out of Raptor and I.

“Well, she did say her story was slightly different.”

Very slightly.

She backed away in fear, thinking I would hurt her. But I pointed my nose down at the plastic thing that held the tasty food balls and looked at Max.

“Wasn’t Tasty Food Balls your stage name back when you were in the cabaret?”

It was certainly not!  It was Tasty Cakes.

She seemed to get it as she opened the plastic thing and put some down in front of Max.

I backed up and she walked out.

“See, nothing to worry about.” I said.

“Hm.” Max said before eyeing the brown balls.

Can you please stop calling them that?  You’re giving Eliza the giggles.

“Ehehehehe!”

I rolled my eyes, grabbed one in my three fingered hand, pried open his jaw and placed it on his tongue.

*GONG*

No. Eye-rolling!  It’s almost as bad as smirking.

“Speaking of which, you may want to keep Horatio handy.”

He growled as I did that, but turned blissful as he registered the flavor. “You were right…” He said in calm down before inhaling the rest.

I can’t be the only one who’s been thinking of that the whole time.

Wait, I thought you said there was going to be smir-

I smirked. “Don’t try anything.” I said before we went back to the rest of the pack.

*GONG*

Authors!  There are other facial expressions!

May’s POV at the time…

Oh for fuck’s sake.

“How has AH77 managed to come up with a worse way to do scene and POV tags than ZincRae?”

I don’t know.  I wouldn’t have thought it possible at the time.

I scanned my card on the door and entered cautiously.

Is every scene going to start with May scanning her card and going into a pen?  ’cause that’s going to get old kinda fast.

“I just realized that May and Rae rhyme.”

Ahh, so that’s how she came up with it.

“And Seth and Sorin both start with the same letter.”

Smooth, author, smooth.  At least Max is a new character.

We had five raptors, and I was wary around them, even though the one I always take care of was the dominant male.  Yet you could never be too careful…

You’re wary around what the books and movies built as the ultimate hunter of the Jurassic period?

Next I suppose you’re going to tell me that you’re kinda nervous being in the water with great white sharks.

I turned my head and there he was. The instant he saw me he curled up and growled at me.

Always a good sign to see a deadly predator acting threatened while injured.  Especially when you’re unarmed and don’t have any tranquilizers.

“What a faker.” I thought with a smirk as I approached him and examined his leg.

*GONG*

Seriously, knock it off!

“I guess I was right about ‘feral’ meaning it was a transparently fake display.”

How does it feel to be right about the fic?

“Unsettling that it was so easy.”

Welcome to the club.

As I was about to start, I noticed another raptor come out of the bushes.

Clerver g-

*NOM!*

Eliztha.  Leth go uf my nosth.

This was our beta male, you could tell since he had the stripes on his arms and legs like the alpha male I was taking care of, but he didn’t have the head feathers.

*Sigh*

She’s making the same exact mistake as Zinc did.

“Word of advice to authors everywhere, if you’re going to make your animal pack hierarchically polymorphic, you need to really think about how genetics and nature do not work like that. At all.”

The alpha raised his feathers, and the beta backed away. Strange, but I just cast it aside.

“Well, this is something else she ‘borrowed’ from Raptor and I.  Redundant scen-”

*Alarm blares*

Aw crap.

*DRD Agents storm into the room.*

“Hey, guys!  You’re just in time.  I finished wrapping all your presents just before the riff.  They’re sitting in the lobby for you.  Make sure you bring the dispatcher his.  And no peaking until Sithmas!”

*The DRD Agents storm out of the room*

You got the DRD Sithmas presents?

“They spend so much time rushing over here every day, I figured it was the least I could do.”

I then grabbed his leg slowly, and he screeched loudly.  I loosened my grip and he calmed down.

Nice going, grabby.

“Where is the healing Triceratops during all this?”

 I then started to splint his leg, like I did with the Gallimimus, and put down a few treats for him.

Yet again, this is not how you treat a broken bone.  Research better.

After that, I got up and got ready to leave, but he hurried in my way and I thought he was going to attack me. But he didn’t, he sniffed the little plastic canister where I kept the carnivore treats, then looked at the beta male. Getting the message, I got out some treats, and put them down. The alpha got out of the way, and I hurried out.

The best part about getting to see the same exact scene from two different vantage points was how little difference there was between the two.  Almost like the second pass was entirely pointless.

And that was just the beginning of my day.

And with that, chapter one comes to a close.

“Was that supposed to be a cliff hanger?”

Well, it does kinda hang, I guess.

But wait, there’s one little author’s note left:

Next time: Denise the fat, ugly Menace

Yup, you guessed it, the return of shallow, judgmental authoring!

Until next week, patrons!

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