Oh, dear, another post to talk about a story. I'm such an attention whore. Anyway, I do dislike the "Exposed" tag, but I can't think of anything better. Now I see why Doctor Who Confidential and Torchwood Declassified have such crap names - there's no word that means "behind the scenes" and is anything approaching cool.
Anyway, I'd originally started writing far more for Laoren and Trenavass, but then realised that the school actually housed the interesting part of the story. Since Trenavass's revelation is such a standard plot twist that it's barely more than a plot device, there was only so much "I can't believe it!", "soz Loz" dialogue to write before the aliens themselves needed to start marching.
Deleted scenes: There was a line that Jeremy was asleep upstairs. I took it out, because I like to leave characters unmentioned unless they're directly relevant. Rest assured, Jeremy still exists, and will no doubt hear the news soon enough.
I've been interested in the "person close to you is actually royalty" storyline for a long time, possibly because of my own tenuous link to royal blood. I pretty much stole the whole storyline of royal-alien-sheltering-on-Earth-from-other-aliens from everyone's favourite Classic Who writers, Pip and Jane Baker. It was largely the premise of Watt on Earth. And it had a character named Zoe, and I nicked her name too. I'm such a farce.
In retrospect, I think I made a big mistake in the lies he told Laoren. I'd prefer it if he'd merely lied by omission, rather than flatly fibbing. I mean, that's sort-of there - he never said he wasn't a prince, and indeed, he admitted that royalty were one of the most likely types of his species to speak English. But I think I should have made it clearer that he actually wasn't expecting the police to turn up at all, let alone so soon. And he shouldn't have told her he'd be meeting governmental types. Silly alien.
Anyway, I hope I've done Ffion justice in this story. Always hard to build up unseen characters. Incidentally, although I created it mostly so that Stephanie's story would make more sense, the Apathy Dart Gun is my new favourite sci-fi gadget. Imagine it - you get mugged on the street, so you take a shot, and the mugger just becomes absolutely bored and wanders off to watch Any Dream Will Do. Or you see one of those awful "GOD WILL JUDGE AND KILL US ALL" people on a street corner, and he just thinks "bugger it" and treats himself to a McDonald's Happy Meal.
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Ha! Yeah, well, a sample of Trenavass/Laoren dialogue to clarify my point:
Trenavass: My ship doesn't really need to recharge. I told you that as a lie, absolute cad that I am.
Laoren: Right, yes, because I'm ignorant of your technology which you know, since you know all about this planet, so you used my ignorance here to make your most blatent lie thus making me feel stupid and as though I should have guessed sooner.
Trenavass: Soz, Loz.
Laoren: I can't believe it.
Being my point, sort of thing. As for Jeremy, no, he wasn't utterly relevant, but don't you think that if aliens had landed you'd be dragging everyone in your house out of bed to watch? Unless you didn't like them, I suppose. Can't say I'd have knocked Gethin's door. Or Emma's, but then she only watched television. She'd have seen it and flicked to the shopping channel.
Ffion was very good, incidentally by the way, being as she hand a backbone and all. That's always good in a character you want to like. And the apathy gun was superb - but what would happen in a stand-off? If both people shot and then, just, kind of, ooh, a bee, look... Although, big problems if one of them gets into the hands of everyday criminals. They could shoot people and then demand all their money, and then shoot Lunar Mist as he tries to help! Gasp. Intriguing idea.
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