Why am I green?

Who gets to decide what normal is and what it isn't?

Could I invite you to participate in a small experiment? I promise it won't hurt! It's important to gain a different perspective on this question. Please read the rest of this paragraph before starting the exercise. Set a timer on your phone for 30 seconds. Then take a deep breath, close your eyes, and for half a minute, try to visualize what a "normal" person looks like. Ready? Go ahead...

Alright, you know what's coming next. What did you see? What did you visualize in your mind as "normal"? This exercise is not meant to make you feel guilty about anything; let me explain. We all have different perspectives of what "normal" looks, sounds, and acts like. The idea of normal is usually rooted in your environment and what you see every day. That's completely okay.

When I was developing the concept for this story, I spent a lot of time carefully thinking about what each supporting character looked like before working on the main character. This was intentional because I wanted to ensure that the focal point of the story didn't unintentionally suggest what "normal" looks like. If the main character had a specific human-like skin color, such as Black or White, it would imply that all the supporting characters are "different" because the main character is clearly "normal." I made the character green to remove the idea that there is a "normal" because there isn't. Every character, like every person on the planet, is uniquely different.