[Lance nods, that sounds like a common story he's seen before. Two sides equally afraid of the other until they reduce each other to monsters. That's how a lot of wars get started.]
There's good guys and bad guys of all shapes and sizes, sometimes when people are scared, it feels safer to call everyone who's not like you a monster. [Then he tilts his head and squints in a way that usually goes along with an "ummm, actually…"]
Weeelll, I wasn't always a fish person. Where I'm from, we travel to all kinds of different planets and we landed on this planet that had fish aliens who could change you to be like them. They did that to me but didn't finish the job, and I've been kind of like you ever since. I'd look human on land, but get me wet and I'm like this… but lately, I can't change back to human anymore.
[That last part has him looking tense and pensive for a moment, but then he shrugs.]
And what I mean is humans sometimes hurt and discriminate against other humans because of the color of their skin or because of who they fall in love with… or any other things that make them different. Lots of the locals in Deerington were stuck in the past. Literally. To them it was the 1950s, which was a time when people who weren't white and straight were… less than human. I got called some things because I'm Cuban, was even attacked a couple times… [More than a couple times.] My friend Chloe used to get her truck vandalized like alllll the time.
CW: Discussion of racism continues
There's good guys and bad guys of all shapes and sizes, sometimes when people are scared, it feels safer to call everyone who's not like you a monster. [Then he tilts his head and squints in a way that usually goes along with an "ummm, actually…"]
Weeelll, I wasn't always a fish person. Where I'm from, we travel to all kinds of different planets and we landed on this planet that had fish aliens who could change you to be like them. They did that to me but didn't finish the job, and I've been kind of like you ever since. I'd look human on land, but get me wet and I'm like this… but lately, I can't change back to human anymore.
[That last part has him looking tense and pensive for a moment, but then he shrugs.]
And what I mean is humans sometimes hurt and discriminate against other humans because of the color of their skin or because of who they fall in love with… or any other things that make them different. Lots of the locals in Deerington were stuck in the past. Literally. To them it was the 1950s, which was a time when people who weren't white and straight were… less than human. I got called some things because I'm Cuban, was even attacked a couple times… [More than a couple times.] My friend Chloe used to get her truck vandalized like alllll the time.