Tear Jerker / It's not the Raptor DNA

Even in a story full of fluff like It's not the Raptor DNA, there's also a surprising amount of heart-wrenching sadness.

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• Charlie's death. In most other fics, all of the Raptor Squad survives. Not this one.
  Barry: I brought Charlie home...
  • Apparently, Charlie spent long amounts of time staring at rose bushes...but now nobody can know what she thinks about them. Both Owen and Barry break into tears during her funeral, and even the new kid Scott is mournful, despite him being nearly killed a day earlier.
  • On a brighter note, though, her sisters have accepted Charlie's death and have moved on, for the sake of the pack.
• "I told you it would come back on...it's a really good song."
  • For those who do not understand this, Elise is going to be euthanized. She has spent her whole life isolated (or is it?) in a small paddock, and after rampaging around the park for a good day, is shown kindness for the first time in a very long time. And after only a few hours of this newfound freedom, she is going to die.
  • Though Zach's girlfriend does get to save the day.
• The truth about Elise's sister Small One. Elise really struggled to keep Small One healthy, doing things like building a rudimentary shelter for her, and stealing a worker's raincoat to keep her warm (which horribly backfired, as this was the incident that caused the workers to start feeding her via crane, thus negating any chance of her getting help.) When Small One passed in her sleep, Elise thought she was getting better. Then she wouldn't wake up, she wouldn't eat, she was cold, and it wasn't until her sister began to smell that Elise finally realized Small One wasn't going to wake up again. This revelation drives everyone from Claire to Gerry Harding to tears.
• Debra's antagonism towards Elise becomes more understandable once its revealed she raised the Apatosaurus herd from when they were babies, giving them all names just as Owen did with the Raptor Squad, and then Elise killed them all during her rampage.
  • Likewise Blake's hatred of Elise becomes sympathetic given that he viewed Hamada as a mentor and still visits his grave regularly. Blake often wishes he hadn't called in sick that day and had died instead of Hamada.
• What's Bridges' response to the lawyer asking him about the young tyrannosaurs being fed to his pet Spinosaurus? We have a breeding pair. That's right, some petty sociopath is having young T-Rexes, majestic badass predators, taken from their parents just to be fed to a Spinosaurus. If you didn't hate Bridges or the Spinosaurus before, this is a good chance to do so.
  • And considering how they are shown to be genuinely loving parents, both in The Lost World and Rexy's adopted children, it's best not to think about the anguish being experienced by these Tyrannosaur mates. How would you feel about having your children taken from you to be fed like livestock?
  • Showing how he and Owen are not so different, Bridges has a deep connection with Sobek despite the latter barely tolerating him. Sobek helped save his mother inadvertently, and made Bridges a fan of the Spinosaurus species. Plus, when Sobek is sick and has nearly been killed, Bridges is forced to acknowledge that it is the End of an Age concerning Sobek on Isla Sorna. Going through those emotionally charged chapters and Bridges' own humanizing moments when his Number Two forces him gently to acknowledge those points, and the depths to which he goes to make sure Sobek survives, is heartrending. We have to have some Sympathy for the Devil here!
• There's something very saddening about Owen having an honestly hard time trying to explain to Rosie that Elise's sister is dead and won't ever come back.
• Blake's murder. Dear God, Blake's murder. Even if you view Bridges as sympathetic, any notion of sympathy will go down the drain immediately.
  • What makes it worse? Blake was getting better. He'd started going to therapy and was sobering up. He was going to go back to work soon, in a reduced fashion, and he was even able to get over some of his animosity towards Elise. Blake didn't just die, he got a full Heel Face Doorslam.
  • Even worse? If this story is being used as your headcanon, then it marks the first time in the entire series in which a character is killed not by a dinosaur, but by a bullet fired by another human. Humans Are Bastards, indeed.
• The female in the Tyrannosaurus mating pair on Isla Sorna died, so Romano has to go through with the process of putting down Leonardo, the male Rex, before he just dies of grief. He may be working for the bad guys, but Romano deeply cares for these animals, and he's visibly broken up having to kill the Tyrannosaurus.
• Everything in Wu's video is either heartwarming, Tear Jerker, or a mixture of both.
  • He admits to all the mistakes he made. This would make him look an atoner, until you realize he doesn't really need to be atoned; every seemingly villainous act he every did was done out of loyalty to Hammond and his ideals, and thus he really never deserved all the bad things both the real villains and the readers throw at him.
• Chapter 74:
  • Elise has an older sister, the Indomitus Rex. She hatched the day before Elise and Small One, so she's not much older than Elise is. The Indomitus Rex was kept in even worse conditions than Elise, and she did not have the benefit of Small One to keep her sane in the first part of her life. Bridges kept her so isolated, she is Covered in Scars from untreated injuries, and he had her vocal cords removed so she would not let anyone know of her existence, which reduced her Mighty Roar to a pathetic squeak. She is basically everything that Elise was prior to meeting Owen, except with no one to help her. Claire wants to bring the Indomitus to Jurassic World, but it might already be too late.
    • As revealed in Chapter 75, the Indomitus was kept so isolated and restrained that she doesn't remember what grass is; she knows pavement as the ground, but thinks that grass is the fur of some gigantic creature. Her attempts to intimidate it would be almost funny if the situation wasn't so heartbreaking.
  • Hart's situation puts his Roaring Rampage of Revenge into perspective; he has no money, no family, and Bridges will have his head after this. It really makes his death at the claws of the Concavenator family seem like a Mercy Kill.
• Elise did not tell Rexy that she was going to leave for Isla Sorna for a few days. The normally proud T. Rex quickly gets into a funk when Elise doesn't show up at the right times, refusing to eat and even rejecting Blue's offer of an Oreo to cheer her up. Sobek, who managed to figure it out on his own, is equally upset that his neighbor is so down, and does what he can to comfort her until Elise gets back.
• Fuego is shown to be willing to die for Cheshire and Dawn, the remaining members of his pack, as well as Short One who had only recently joined them. Unfortunately, the others disobey him to assist Elise in her fight against Carnifex and Tacet, which results in the deaths of both Dawn and Cheshire. And after the battle, Short One's missing mate suddenly reappears and she ends up leaving with him, leaving Fuego all alone. Thankfully, Owen and Claire offer him the opportunity to go to Jurassic World with them via Elise, which he accepts.
• During clean-up of Isla Sorna, the ACU finds Dr Wu's remains charred nearly beyond recognition in the rubble; unfortunately, the only one available who can lift the concrete slab that's pinning the body is Elise. She barely holds it together and then goes to have a breakdown over the thought of losing the people she cares about.
• As of January 2024, it's been 7 years since the last update of this fic, making it more than likely that it has been abandoned, leaving a great many plot threads and curious readers hanging.