fandomweekly | [#019] Everybody’s Different (Original, with a touch of Torchwood)

Theme Prompt: #019 – Stereotype
Title: Everybody’s Different
Fandom: Original, with a touch of Torchwood
Rating/Warnings: PG / None
Bonus: Yes
Word Count: 798
Summary: Stereotypes are the worst kid of generalisation, and some people have every reason to be offended by the way they’re perceived.

Stereotypes are insulting, not to mention dangerous since they’re usually completely wrong. Of course generalisations of any kind are a bad idea. Everybody’s different, even when there are similarities in their outward appearance.

Personally I blame movies. I’ve seen my share, hard not to when they’re being broadcast willy-nilly, and I have to say I’m not impressed with the way people like me get depicted. Really, it’s quite upsetting. I mean come on, use your heads; we’re not all little green men from Mars, or little grey men for that matter. If you haven’t noticed, Mars in uninhabitable and always has been for anything more advanced than the odd amoeba, and trust me when I say they’re VERY odd. Come to that, we’re not even all MEN as humans understand the term! Sexist much? Naturally some of us are male, and some are female, but others are of indeterminate gender or none at all.

The universe is a big place; plenty of room for every conceivable variation to evolve, and a few that you humans would no doubt consider inconceivable. Many of the younger races have a tendency towards narrow-mindedness, but that’s only to be expected with the young and inexperienced so we do our best to tolerate such childish notions. There is more variety in the universe than you can begin to imagine, sheltered as you are on your one little planet.

Take myself, for example. If you met me in my natural form you’d have me pegged as an alien right away, I’m sure, and you’d probably kill me on sight because everybody knows from the movies that aliens abduct humans in order to perform horrible experiments on them. Either that or they’re bent on taking over the planet, stealing its resources, and enslaving the population, right?

Wrong, that’s another blatant example of stereotyping.

For one thing, there’s nothing on your planet that we can’t get elsewhere cheaper and with a lot less effort. Well, except for coffee, which doesn’t seem to grow as well elsewhere, and zip fasteners. Can you believe no other race has ever invented those? Quite remarkable things, and very useful, so many of us are willing to overlook human eccentricities and live among you. I make quite a good living exporting luxury goods to several worlds. The latest must-have commodity is action figures. Everyone seems to want little human dolls they can pose in improbable positions. Many people find them quite endearing.

I seem to have gone slightly off topic, now where was I? Ah yes, stereotyping all aliens as cruel, or violent, people to be feared and destroyed. Honestly, if anything it’s the other way around; we should be afraid of you, and many of us are. It’s a hazardous business living on a world where many of the inhabitants are intolerant of minor differences in their own kind. If you people knew how many non-humans live among you… Well, I can only hope you never find out.

The truth is that most of the people you would term aliens or extraterrestrials are peaceful, civilised beings like myself. Of course there are some very nasty people out in the universe, Daleks, and Cybermen, and the unsavoury elements of some other races; even the most advanced societies occasionally produce a few bad apples, as you might describe them. On the whole though, we’re interested in fair trade, and scientific study, and no, that does not mean we carry out experiments on people. It’s far easier to do a quick, unobtrusive scan of select individuals to gather data without them even being aware, and if biological samples are required, all anyone has to do is ask the nice people of Torchwood.

They’re also the ones who provide people like me with the identities and the camouflage technology that allow us to live among humans without anyone else ever being aware that we come from another planet. Not all of us are lucky enough to have natural shape-shifting abilities. Torchwood protects us provided we obey their rules and don’t break any laws.

I expect you’re wondering what a real alien looks like. Well, it varies, but I can tell you right now that I am neither little, nor green or grey. I’m six feet tall, purple, completely hairless, and I have what you’d no doubt term tentacles rather than arms and legs, four for walking and two for using tools and so forth. My four eyes are on stalks and I hear with antennae rather than ears. Stuff that in your stereotypes and chew on it.

There’s only one generalisation I agree with; people are people, no matter what shape or colour they might be. We all deserve to be treated with respect and consideration. I hope someday humanity will learn that lesson.

The End

[#019] Everybody’s Different (Original, with a touch of Torchwood)

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