Does Not Illustrate: Human Aliens

The actual trope is about aliens that are indistinguishable from humans physically. The page image actually only has two characters pictured that are actually passably human. It's picturing Rubber-Forehead Aliens. I tried finding a good picture of Kryton's descrution and Superman's origin story, but I didn't have any luck with that. I know good images must exist, but I'm not having any luck finding any.

Having some obviously alien characters in the mix reinforces the impression that this is a group of aliens...even the ones that look like humans.

I agree. I think especially the Superman's background might be good to illustrate it. I'll be looking as well.

edited 16th Apr '13 2:16:51 AM by XFllo

Keep Until Better Image Suggested.

Also, I don't think it's fair that physically resembling a human but having a different skin color should count as a Rubber-Forehead Alien. That's really being nitpicky about the definition of the trope.

edited 16th Apr '13 4:19:31 AM by DRCEQ

Look at the title on the cover. I'll argue for a better quality version of the pic, but Keep Until Better Image Suggested overall.

But that's not this trope. The trope is there are no discernible difference between humans and the alien. The image is highly misleading—you'd think it's about mostly-human figures, but that is Rubber-Forehead Aliens. It doesn't say or infer "almost everyone on this image doesn't count". It includes everyone on the image because it doesn't omit them. I'm not saying it's a bad image because you don't know they're aliens. I'm saying it's a bad image because some of them clearly are.

The trope is quite explicit: "Note that, for this trope, the alien must be visually indistinguishable from a human. "Human, but with blue (or purple, orange, green, etc.) skin" falls under Rubber Forehead Aliens." "

The image we have is actually potentially the worst possible image you can have for a trope like this, as it actually plays into where this trope gets most of its misuse from.

edited 16th Apr '13 11:46:59 AM by helterskelter

I think the image on Ambiguously Human actually fits better here.

Here's◊ an idea from The Day The Earth Stood Still.

Would having a human-looking alien surrounded by a very alien surrounding a la this Superman pic◊ work?

I agree with Helter and vote to pull the current one. It should have an arrow pointing to Superman and saying "this guy" in order to work visually.

I'm seeing three Human Aliens (Possibly four if that woman have eaten a lot of carrots) and a caption that makes it clear.

kubis

edited 18th Apr '13 11:11:50 AM by m8e

This◊ is the best I've got. Most of Superman's origin stories are really wordy or else don't mention Krypton and Earth.

I agree that the image is too ambiguous, but I don't see that we have to stick with Superman. Maybe something from Star Trek?

Well, the image I suggested isn't ambiguous, it's just wordy and cluttered and would require extensive Photoshopping to work.

The reason I suggest Superman is because he is an iconic example of this trope. We could probably just get away with only picturing him, but I'd like something better. The truth is that this is hard to picture if we're not using a very, very well known example because the trope is that they look identical to humans, which means something needs to clarify that they are non-human in the image. Being in a sci-fi setting isn't enough, since it could be future humans in weird clothing.

The issue with the current image is that it plays directly into misuse. It absolutely requires the caption and people reading the caption in order to get it, and even then, the caption is kinda crappy.

edited 19th Apr '13 11:35:50 AM by helterskelter

That's kind of why I suggested the image on Ambiguously Human. It's not really an example there because none of the characters are 'ambiguously' human, but they all look it, and playing 'spot the human' is much better for this trope than that one.

I'd be fine with using the image from Ambiously Human. It really is illustrating the subtrope of Human Alien.

I agree with terrie that Star Trek could work. For instance Betazoid people look exactly like humans, but I'm not sure whether we could find an image that would be clear enough, and Deanna Troi doesn't have Superman-level recognizability...

About the current one — I think the idea of a good trope image is that it works without having to read the captioning.

I'm tempted to suggest Spock for the image. I know he has the ears and all, which could make him a Rubber-Forehead Alien, but he looks much closer to human than most. He isn't 100% humanoid, but any alien that looks exactly like a human can't demonstrate the trope without context.

edited 27th Apr '13 10:53:50 PM by Rethkir

But he still doesn't count, unfortunately. It's exactly human. Rubber-Forehead Alien encompasses slightly not-human and mostly human, but Human Aliens means entirely human in appearance with no discernible differences. And I think any image that clearly expressed on it they were aliens (such as the Superman one I provided above) could work, provided it wasn't too wordy (like the Superman one). Spock would contribute directly to misuse.

edited 27th Apr '13 11:11:24 PM by helterskelter

Its ironic that the only image so far with the required context, the "Justice League of Aliens," is argued against by saying the context is misleading.

The Superman image is a possibility, but inferior in my opinion. Only the text says that's not Earth and not even the text says those are not humans.

An obvious group of aliens, with some that look exactly human, is pretty much the only way I can think of to illustrate this trope without resorting to just a face and a caption saying "he's not human, honest." I suppose we could edit in big arrows pointing to the human-looking ones in the JLA pic if you think Viewers Are Morons enough to think that "Human Aliens" refers to the green dude or something.

Keep Until Better Image Suggested, largely because I am not clear on how much the current image's people would fall under "normal physiological variation".

The cover clearly says "Justice League of Aliens". It doesn't matter if all of them don't fit the trope; the fact that Superman is mixed into the group should be enough of an indication that he ain't human.

I still strongly disagree.

• This trope is about zero difference between aliens and humans in appearance. Not even a little difference. Characters like Spock don't count. Characters like Superman do.
• The image specifically says they are aliens, all of them, but without knowing that the trope means exactly human, it's far too easy to presume it means all of them (particularly since they look mostly human). The caption only barely helps. It simply states that the human-appearing aliens in the picture are aliens too, but that doesn't tell you that the rest of them aren't the trope. It just tells you "surprise! The ones you thought were humans were this trope too!".

Come to think of it, the image would be stronger if it didn't picture the Rubber-Forehead Aliens. That's my main contention with it—by picturing them, it doesn't make it clear where the trope makes it cut off. It's far too easy to mistake this trope for "humans but for a small cosmetic difference", as in characters like Lobo or Starfire.

Anyhow, there's this◊, this◊, this◊, and this◊.

edited 28th Apr '13 1:11:45 PM by helterskelter

I kinda like the first and last one. And maybe the third.

And I agree it's best to not show any almost human aliens, since it's too easy to think they're included in the trope.

That's really the problem with illustrating this. We need to illustrate something you can't see. I think it's almost to the point where JAFAAC would be an acceptable choice, though the above does have something at least a little better than that.

edited 28th Apr '13 1:34:32 PM by AnotherDuck

First or second for me.