Aliens in Fanworks

Tropes and genres
Synonym(s)	Extraterrestrial life, Alien AU, Alien Contact
Related tropes/genres	Alien Kink, Xeno, Bug-Eyed Monster, Alien Romance
See also	List of Alien Fandoms, Space AU
Related articles on Fanlore.

Aliens are a staple of the science fiction genre.

They also appear in fanfiction and fanart in many fandoms.

In fiction, portrayals of aliens range from menacing to peaceful and from beings from civilizations far more advanced than humans to simple life forms. Aliens may interact with humans/earthlings, but not necessarily.

An early trope in science fiction was aliens portrayed as Bug-Eyed Monster, or "B.E.M.s"

Alien AU

An Alien AU is an alternate universe work in which one or more characters from the source material are reimagined as aliens. They may abduct human characters, crash-land in the backyards of human characters, or may be trying to blend into human society and hide their alien nature from their peers.

Fanwork Examples

Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples.

• Because Dragon Ball has canonical space aliens (Saiyans) whose homeworld was destroyed prior to the start of the series, fanfiction and fanart set in an AU in which the planet Vegetasei was never destroyed are common enough to practically be a subgenre of DragonBall fanworks.
• There is a very common trope in Electronic Dance Music RPF of portraying Skrillex as an alien.

Fanfic

• The One With Aliens by interrodang. A Shaun Hastings/Desmond Miles oneshot in which Shaun discovers Desmond is an alien.
• Lost in translation (a be-tentacled romance) by Ravager_Zero. Original science fiction drawing inspiration from Arrival (2016) and the Cthulhu Mythos.
• The Wayliens series by casanovica and Kitoko_kun. A duo of Frerard and Petekey fics portraying Gerard and Mikey Way as aliens.

Resources

• Aliens tag at AO3
• Alien/Human Relationships tags at AO3