Aliens and Humans

[unspeakablehorror]

I feel like alien characters are just cooler than human characters, and this is what draws me to space scifi. Like you can get something analogous in fantasy sometimes, and not all space scifi includes this, but its just more common to have nonhuman characters in space scifi. Robots can count too but aliens are usually my favorite. I have a real dislike of the 'just wants to be human' trope that both categories often suffer from, but especially the robot one. Also not a fan of nonhuman characters being considered somehow lesser than human ones. Like don't get me wrong, I *can* enjoy humans, but every 'just want to be human' sentiment, every 'humans are better, more complex, more capable of emotional depth' sentiment gives 'humanity' in the story a greater and greater normative vibe to me, until I start reading 'humanity' as a stand-in for 'normal people'. Quite frankly, it's rather alienating to me.