Don’t Tell Me: Author’s Notes

by Katherine Chan

The Characters:

Kit: You might actually find her a little bloodthirsty, from the way she likes martial arts and how she deals with the aliens and the clones. From the story, you should have the following image of her (by the ‘end’, before she wakes up):

Short, spiky black hair, with dark purple highlights A little taller than 6 feet Slim, but the muscle makes her look a bit bulky Iris changes colours, but is blue mostly Likes black, dark blue and dark purple Loves technology, but is a bit scared of connecting to cyber-space Loves fighting Gay Has a cyber-technic left arm

Not many people will actually like this character, since being ‘bloodthirsty’ and ‘cruel’, as she is displayed at the end, aren’t very good characteristics. And being gay still isn’t a good idea even now, there’s still a load of bigots – or ‘strongly opinionated’ people, shall we say – out there. An ‘Original’.

Layne: She’s a nice girl, a pretty girl, an intelligent girl. Okay, so that’s kind of hard to get, but I wanted a nice, perfect character that wasn’t the main, main character. She:

Has long, dark brown hair, almost black, with blonde streaks Brown eyes A bit under 6 feet Slim Likes hot pink, lava orange, that kind of thing Loves pop music, shopping, make-up Gay Has cyber-technic feet

Again, if you are a big- err, if you are ‘strongly opinionated’ on the issue of homosexuality – that is, against it – you won’t find this character as attractive as those who aren’t. You might even say ‘If only she wasn’t gay, she’d be perfect’.

Danny: He’s got black hair, black eyes, about 6 and a half feet tall, is a tech-freak, wears glasses, all in all, is a true blue geek. Apart from the fact that he wears stylish glasses and dresses okay and talks normally and oh you know, he doesn’t look like a geek on the outside. An ‘Original’.

Kane: Mature, the kind of older brother who, when you were both young, used to look after you at school but bullied you at home. But then he grew up, and protects you all the time, so it’s all good. He’s a little more than 7 feet tall, light chestnut hair, hazel eyes, slightly tanned complexion. Plain looking, but he dresses well enough for the girls to fawn all over him. What with his step-father’s emphasis on martial arts, he’s got a pretty good physique. An ‘Original’.

Tomin: Think Tobias from the Animorphs meets Dawson from Dawson’s Creek. He’s a hottie, but oh my God, can he be annoying and so damn NAÏVE! Granted, he matures up a lot after backpacking around Australia (Yep, that’s where this story is set. Where else?), but he’s still an annoying twit. Not that you see him being annoying in the story, but hey! An ‘Original’.

Jonathon:What do you think when the name ‘Jonathon’ is said? Do you think of that annoying kid from primary or do you think of that hot dude you met at the social? Well, wipe out the stereotype for ‘Jonathon’, because this Jonathon is a bit of a freak of nature. You know how orange hair isn’t ‘natural’? Well his auburn hair is red enough to be called ‘orange’, and his eyes! They’re mauve! O.o Have no idea how Alexia fell in love with him… x.X An ‘Original’.

Alexia: She’s got mousey brown hair to her shoulder blades, more cute than pretty. Teal (that’s grey for all you dumbasses out there) eyes, has a nose which is a little too long, and she’s a bit short for her age. What with Layne being her older sister, her style’s pretty much Layne’s style. Is okay at tae kwon do, but nowhere near as skilled as Kit or Kane. An ‘Original’.

Henri Tohmu: The evil scientist, the uncaring step-parent, all those clichés in one! Come one, come all, clichés from every corner of the universe! He doesn’t really have anything memorable about him, like he has two eyes, two ears, a nose, a mouth, hair, eight fingers and two thumbs, two hands, two arms, two legs, two feet… etc., but it’s just… nothing special. Brown hair with black sections (now… that’s strange), aquamarine eyes, reasonably tall.

King Andryte: The evil mastermind- no, not that cliché, it’s a different one! He’s the ruler of the nomadic aliens who come and invade planet Earth, and gets killed by the general populace.

Kit and Danny’s Mother: A cheat, a gold digger. That’s all I have to say.

Kit and Danny’s Father: A caring father who got killed because he wasn’t rich enough to keep his wife and because Henri wanted the two children.

Kane’s Mother, Layne and Alexia’s Mother: Not much is known about these two, all that I have to say is that they die by Henri Tohmu’s hands – not intentionally, of course.

Bellany: She’s the girl that Kit used to be infatuated with. Quite intelligent, long black hair, hot body, 5 foot 8 inches.

Melanie: The spiteful girl who attended the same senior high as Layne and Kit, same grade. Told Layne about Kit’s ‘peculiarities’.

Tomin (from college): As described by his fellow collegians, a ‘child prodigy’.

The Storyline:

Okay, so there are more clichés in this story than you can poke a stick at. And that sentence contained a cliché. But I did put in a few twists and stuff and combined them in quite queer ways (pun not intended).

I didn’t intend for this story to have so many cliché characters and cliché events, but I think this was the story where I drop all the baggage marked ‘chestnut’. For those of you who don’t know what ‘chestnut’ means, it’s another word for ‘cliché’, ‘old joke’, ‘stale joke’, stuff like that.

But the story is quite entertaining (‘That’s like giving a Zippo lighter factory to a pyromaniac!’), and the characters can be quite interesting, especially the Originals. Tell me if any of the characters are too predictable.

Read the story with the Evanescence album ‘Fallen’ playing, or Linkin Park’s ‘Hybrid Theory’ (‘Meteora’ doesn’t have the same feel). If you can’t get your hands on either CD or even a few tracks from them, then play whatever depressing music you have. Don’t have any? Find the best radio station which plays stuff like that.

Want to ask me something? E-mail . It’s my secondary- Oh wait, let me count... School, Hotmail, MSN, Account 1, Softhome, Account 2… Yeah, it’s my forth inbox. You might think my Hotmail and MSN inboxes are one and the same, but actually, one is a one, the other is a one. And the reason why I have two accounts? One for junk, one for my topic subscription notices for all those forums I use. Why not use my Hotmail one for that? Because there’s loads of spam, and I don’t realise that a topic has been replied to if my inbox is overflowing. doesn’t get much spam, ya know, and you have massive inboxes and a 4MB attachment limit. Cool, hey?

Ok, I’ll stop plugging that e-mail server.