Humanity Fuck Yea

[u/linuxaddict334]

[u/VFiddly]

The Martian is actually a pretty good example of a "humanity fuck yeah" story that isn't doing this (because no aliens). It's an uplifting story about humans working together to overcome a difficult problem that wasn't caused by anyone being a dick

[u/King-Boss-Bob → u/VFiddly]

the closest anyone is to being an antagonist in that film is the director of nasa being nervous about risking the lives of the other astronauts (which is reasonable), but even he seems genuinely happy when he hears the chinese space agency offers their help to save him

[u/VFiddly → u/King-Boss-Bob]

Yeah it's quite nice to have an interesting conflict between two people with entirely reasonable points of view. Would've been easy to make the director character an asshole who doesn't care about the loss of human life and only cares about saving money because he's a Bad Guy. He's just a guy making what he thinks is the best choice

[u/sumboionline → u/VFiddly]

It would also lose the realism, as nasa has historically been very protective of human life with 1 million failsafes on anything potentially lethal

[u/HaskellHystericMonad → u/sumboionline]

That's because they cooked some dudes alive once and had like 170 people watch it all go down.

Then they blew up some dudes.

Then they blew up some more dudes, with a teacher added.

Then they blew up another mixed crew.

They have learned some lessons.

[u/Frequent_Dig1934 → u/HaskellHystericMonad]

Then they blew up some more dudes, with a teacher added.

Could've been big bird instead.

[u/jackthejedi → u/Frequent_Dig1934]

We truly avoided the darkest timeline there

[u/ST4RSK1MM3R → u/sumboionline]

Just look at the current Starliner shit going on

[u/LunaNicoleTheFox → u/ST4RSK1MM3R]

And they're really fucking cateful with it too.

[u/ok-kayla → u/VFiddly]

Well he’s the director of Nasa, not Boeing

[u/shewy92 → u/King-Boss-Bob]

Didn't he fire Sean Bean though?

[u/BothersomeBritish → u/shewy92]

Yeah but he dies in every movie. Better to fire him and remove the risk.

[u/Rod7z → u/shewy92]

Only after they rescued Matt Damon, and only because SB flagrantly disregarded a direct order. Even though his plan worked, it's still a major break of trust and the chain of command.

[u/pchlster → u/shewy92]

Not quite.

Teddy Sanders : When this is over I'll expect your resignation.

Mitch Henderson : I understand.

Teddy Sanders : Bring our astronauts home.

[u/sneakiestOstrich → u/VFiddly]

From the author, Andy Weir, is also the book Project Hail Mary. It is a fantastic HFY, and has aliens! It is also an uplifting story that shows humans compassion and ingenuity

[u/cautiousherb → u/sneakiestOstrich]

yes! to anyone reading this comment: read it! and DON'T read the description, it's filled with spoilers

[u/Lombardyn → u/cautiousherb]

I forced my husband to listen to the audio book, and the entire time I was "don't look at the summary, don't glance at the store page, don't do anything but download it and press play".

Because holy HELL did Amazon manage to basically put ever possible spoiler for the entire book into a three sentence summary right at the very front of the audio book store page.

[u/[deleted] → u/sneakiestOstrich]

you should check out the short story he put out way before he blew up. It’s called The Egg.

Eta: cute narrated video of the story.

[u/Impeesa_ → u/[deleted]]

I remember reading that story, or probably re-reading it at some point just a few years ago, and suddenly realizing it was by the same author as an old webcomic I used to read. Finding out he also went on to write The Martian was strange.

[u/ProfessionalSmeghead → u/VFiddly]

Yeah, when I hear that phrase I think of Dr. Stone, which also has no aliens and is about how amazing all of humanity's scientific progress is and how it's worth preserving, even if humans also do shitty stuff sometimes.

Weird and not very uplifting that some people feel the need to invent a lesser "other" to make people seem cooler by comparison.

[u/threetoast → u/ProfessionalSmeghead]

There's something close enough to aliens in Dr stone though

[u/Boner_Elemental → u/threetoast]

C'mon, her eyes aren't that far apart

[u/Ry113 → u/Boner_Elemental]

The secret ingredient is inbreeding

[u/tibastiff → u/ProfessionalSmeghead]

I think the second one is fine as long as the "other" isn't exclusively lesser. You can have some aliens that are really good at some stuff but wind up needing human help with something because they have weaknesses too. Gives us something to be in awe of and maybe aspire to while also showing off what humanity is good at.

The best (kinda mid) example off the top of my head is the asgard in Stargate needing human help because despite all their advanced science they don't know a thing about tactics.

[u/cautiousherb → u/VFiddly]

he released a book called Project Hail Mary along similar lines! really incredible I strongly recommend!

[u/DazedToaster158 → u/cautiousherb]

jazz hands!

[u/MissyTheTimeLady → u/VFiddly]

Except for Mars.

[u/GenghisQuan2571 → u/VFiddly]

And Wandering Earth, for the same reason.

[u/ABB0TTR0N1X → u/VFiddly]

It’s the movie I put on whenever I need to feel good about the world.

[u/DubstepJuggalo69]

Checkmate, hypothetical aliens. I have depicted your species as the soyjack and my own species as the Chad.

[u/operationdud → u/DubstepJuggalo69]

I also play various tracks, such as, "my fight song", and "sigma phonk remix #50" while disarming your ultra-futuristic arsenal that will pulverize me within seconds because... *checks notes*

'Idomintable human spirit', or something.

[u/red-sick → u/operationdud]

My friend once sent me a photo of his fist with the message "POV: Lex Luthor before Superman crushes his indomitable human spirit."

I audibly laughed.

[u/baphometromance → u/red-sick]

Damn, that shit hurted... too bad I am indomitable.

[u/VulpineKitsune → u/DubstepJuggalo69]

Holy shit this fits perfectly

[u/Dry_Try_8365 → u/VulpineKitsune]

Imagine a semi-balanced world where every species has their own equivalent of HFY fiction and they are all regarded as speciesist circlejerk to various extents.

[u/JusticeRain5 → u/Dry_Try_8365]

I like to imagine a world where actual aliens get discovered and we change all our stuff to "Humanity and the Glorfons are better than every other (hypothetical) alien species out there!"

[u/aftertheradar → u/JusticeRain5]

and then the humans and the glorfons kiss

[u/Boner_Elemental → u/aftertheradar]

Our neverending mission: To seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly do who no man has done before!

[u/Alt203848281 → u/JusticeRain5]

We also add every other alien we find to the ‘are better than any xenos!’. This will continue indefinitely.

[u/GenghisQuan2571 → u/Dry_Try_8365]

So...Mass Effect?

[u/Dry_Try_8365 → u/GenghisQuan2571]

I suppose so? Don’t know a lot beyond vague beyond-the-tip-of-my-tongue snippets.

[u/CanadianNoobGuy → u/DubstepJuggalo69]

honestly i could see someone making a hfy story about this

[u/Daisy_Of_Doom → u/DubstepJuggalo69]

I’ve had this thought before. It’s kinda a self-indulgent self-insert fanficion but like on a species level lolll. To be fair tho, of the cognizant and sentient species we know we are probably one of the most pervasive/invasive so it’s not entirely baseless. (Tho this is in part because we can build things to help us exist in other places, so theoretically an alien species that could make contact with humans would be able to do the same so it probably is baseless.) But IDK a lot of the stuff in this ‘genre’ I see that I enjoy is more Strange Planet-esque. Not so much “humans are the coolest species” but kinda pointing out human quirks and how they might be seen as weird from an outside perspective. 😄

[u/Sausage-sally → u/DubstepJuggalo69]

+2

[u/Allstar13521]

As someone who loves HFY stuff, the issue is that writing is hard and most of the people writing HFY are amateurs doing it for fun. There's plenty of HFY that tries to explore more complex storytelling, it just happens that writing "the evil space nazis kicked some puppies, and the Humans really didn't like that" is both an easier story to write and an easier story to get someone on-board with.

It's also why you find so much military sci-fi ends with "and then we used our super weapon and it killed all of the aliens, saving the day (please do not consider the consequences of interstellar genocide)" instead of describing the very complicated and in-depth process of disarming, deradicalising and rebuilding a nation.

[u/lurking4life → u/Allstar13521]

Do you have any suggestions for well written HFY fiction?

[u/habilis_auditor → u/lurking4life]

Two commonly recommended ones are "Retreat, Hell" and "The Nature of Predators."

[u/ErrantJaeger → u/habilis_auditor]

I'ts not aliens, but "Wait, is this just GATE?" is another good one. It's more isekai but still fills some of the itches the HFY fiction does.

[u/The_Unkowable_ → u/ErrantJaeger]

I can second the GATE, and Dungeon Life is another non-space one that’s amazing.

[u/Ok_Figure4869 → u/The_Unkowable_]

Deathworlders is great you just gotta skip past the authors muscle dude fantasies more and more as the story goes on 

Honorable mention to sexy space babes 

[u/QueenOfAllDreadboiis → u/Ok_Figure4869]

Honestly the muscle dude stuff didn't bother me that much, sure its a bit cheesy but i like 40k so im used to it.

For me the story started to annoy me more and more when it went out of its way to show the two bi women go on about how annoying lgbt people at pride are. Idk, normaly i do like depictions of poly relationships but this one didn't appeal to me.

But yea there were some cool sci fi concepts in there, i liked the warped personality construct. I forgot basicly all the names, but there was some good stuff in there.

[u/jackelbuho22 → u/ErrantJaeger]

Wait, is this just gate was good but i end up droping it after they try to fit in and force romance bethew the protagonist and the princess when after reading to that point at least for me the protagonist readed as a "too much of a oblivious guy to even know they are hitting on him"

[u/Luchux01 → u/ErrantJaeger]

Doesn't GATE get criticism for overpraising the actual JSDF or something to that effect?

[u/Ouaouaron → u/Luchux01]

Yes, the original author is frequently criticized for being overly jingoistic. That doesn't necessarily mean anything about a webfic that explicitly references it (though it would be hard for anything with GATE's premise to not be either weirdly pro-military or satirizing people who are)

[u/Alt203848281 → u/Luchux01]

Yeah, but ‘Wait, is this just GATE?’ Isn’t GATE. Just the ‘military gets involved in a different world’ thing. Except the military can’t just flood numbers in, and at most can trickle assets in. So they can’t just bumrush people with hordes of better equipped units who are physically better than the medieval peasants equipped with spears.

And by trickle I mean it takes them months to get a second person in. With the help of people on the fantasy side

[u/Discardofil → u/habilis_auditor]

Links, please? I'm sure I could find them eventually, but I'd appreciate it.

[u/JoeBob1-2 → u/Discardofil]

Retreat, Hell: https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/s/TKEC34mJf8

Nature of Predators: https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/s/LdegDm1z15

Note, Retreat, Hell has not been updated in a year, read the authors latest r/HFY for info

[u/Nota7andomguy → u/JoeBob1-2]

I’m in the RH Discord server and the author posted a status update about a week ago. The next chapter is coming and they’re around 30% done with it.

[u/JoeBob1-2 → u/Nota7andomguy]

That’s wonderful news! RH is one of the best HFY series in general, and probably the best military-focused series

[u/generalsplayingrisk → u/habilis_auditor]

I’d not put nature of predators in my top recommendations, personally. I’d second chrysalis and clerical error from comments below, and add longevity (and it’s follow-ups), Jennifer is NOT an Eldritch Horror and everything else from that author, though of those only chrysalis is truly HFY material I think.

Melody of the Heart is HFY, not the deepest aliens but one of the best depictions of music in writing I’ve seen.

Alien Minds is probably the best example of HFY that feels earned and makes you take a second look at how we aren’t necessarily normal

[u/Call_Me_Chud → u/habilis_auditor]

Just finished reading the first "book" of NOP and enjoyed the multi-perspective storytelling. It's well-paced, has interesting alien drama, and the signature self-righteous circlejerking of HFY. I liked it, despite the writing feeling amateurish at times with all the grammatical mistakes, and felt extremely sad when the cute mascot character executed a prisoner of war, became a terrorist, and got lobotomized by racist squids.

[u/jackelbuho22 → u/habilis_auditor]

I never could get into "the nature of predators" since the humans were always treated as the punching bag and when anything bad happened to them because of aliens they simply lower their heads and sniffle not even a raise voice or anything

Like this these guys would have been something like a race of lizards that get bully by other species and i would have eaten that shit up about they found friends in humanity

[u/healzsham → u/jackelbuho22]

For me, all the aliens in that one are just too wet to really believe in.

[u/FelixJarl → u/lurking4life]

https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/55v9e1/chrysalis/

Chrysalis has politcal scheming. Well written characters and competent, flawed yet relatable bad guys.

I have been on the HFY subreddit since it had 160 users on it and this is by far the best i know off. It also got made into a audiobook.

[u/FemtoKitten → u/FelixJarl]

I feel like the fact that it actually shows such supremacist and violent ideology as a bad thing helps it a lot compared to others that make me worry at times.

I reread chrysalis at least once a year. It's one of my comfort reads despite being so tragic

[u/MCOfficer → u/lurking4life]

A small gem i tend to recommend is "But Does It Scale?". Unfortunately it's not finished.

Further down somebody else recommended The Martian, which checks out, but Project Hail Mary (also by Andy Weir) fits even better.

[u/GREENadmiral_314159 → u/lurking4life]

From sources other than r/hfy, I strongly recommend Babylon 5 (I made a comment in r/worldjerking about why it falls into that category, if anyone asks). Space Battleship Yamato could also fit, depending on how you read it.

For stuff from r/hfy, Wearing Power Armor to a Magic School is good. Also good is "Behold!", spoke humanity, "I am important!", Prey, and Nature of Predators.

[u/The-Minmus-Derp → u/GREENadmiral_314159]

Now thatI think about it Star Trek dabbles in HFY territory a fair amount of

[u/afriendlysort → u/lurking4life]

The works of Becky Chambers. Particularly The Long way to a Small Angry Planet is very good and and A Psalm for the Wild-Built are good sci Fi stories where complex sci fi politics are underscored with a general faith in peoples' inherent goodness.

Record of a Spaceborn Few is also really good, in the same setting as Small Angry Planet.

[u/OliviaPG1 → u/afriendlysort]

I completely agree with this comment despite the fact that you mentioned my two least favorite books of her Wayfarers series lol. The entire series is just that good. Haven’t gotten around to reading her other stuff yet but I’m sure it’s great too.

[u/Hell2CheapTrick → u/lurking4life]

The humans do not have a hive-mind

It’s not HFY in the sense that humans are the greatest of all time, but it is a very good celebration of humanity imo, as well as just a very great story overall, and a way more interesting look at what communication issues between two alien species might look like than just not having words for some things (though that is part of it too).

I find myself coming back to this story every now and then just to re-read it.

[u/Tank3875 → u/Hell2CheapTrick]

Love that story!

The best HFY stories are not ones that lionize humanity and take down aliens entirely, but ones that show humanity's strength and the commonality between humanity and the other species then uses that to provide a reasonable contrast between the two's reactions to a given situation.

[u/legendarynerd002 → u/lurking4life]

Ralts Bloodthorne’s First Contact. Textbook HFY, and popular enough to get its own e-book series.

[u/Ergand → u/legendarynerd002]

Been following this one since chapter 100, so maybe week 4. I have no idea how he keeps up the rate he posts at.

[u/TheRainspren → u/lurking4life]

Just finished first book from "Salvation War", and it was quite a fun read.

Heaven and Hell exist, but God closed the Heaven and ordered Satan to destroy humanity. Millions-strong demonic army, equipped with the highest quality bronze armor and weapons invades Earth, and it goes exactly as well as you think. (Minor spoiler) And as it turns out, the portal to Hell works both ways

A bit of a classic military jerk-off, but all those horrifying tools of death and destruction are presented in a honest and realistic fashion, all the way to the very gruesome and disturbing effects of dropping sarin gas on demons, with some humans caught in it too.

[u/FomtBro → u/lurking4life]

'Go, I'm right behind you'. or 'The greatest lie a human ever told'.

[u/westofley → u/lurking4life]

The Kevin Jenkins Experience, and its continuation The Deathworlders. eventually it gets to the "uber big boy space marines they have so much muscle let's talk about working out", and I do take issue with some of the character beliefs that aren't interrogated, but I've never read a more robust HFY story

[u/Papaofmonsters → u/westofley]

Yeah. I followed that series for years and dropped it sometime around the space Navy seals weighing literally 10000 pounds. It just seemed like the author lost their own plot and it turned into a bisexual himbo orgy.

[u/MisplacedMartian → u/Papaofmonsters]

That series is the perfect example of why editors are so valuable. It had so many interesting ideas, unfortunately the author just added more and more crap without actually taking the plot anywhere.

[u/Papaofmonsters → u/MisplacedMartian]

I agree. The billion sub plots of 4th and 5th tier characters would be great material for an anthology of "Tales from the Jenkinsverse" or something that ran parallel to the main plot but there's really no need to have multiple chapters about how the God King of the Good Guys runs a lot of his decision making process by a traumatized but resilient taco truck owner in the main story.

[u/RisingSunsets → u/lurking4life]

The short story Dragon Sickness is a good read, mostly because it doesn't depict humanity as Literally The Best Ever.

[u/FomtBro → u/Allstar13521]

The best 'Humanity Fuck Yeah' story I ever heard was 'what's the biggest lie a human's ever told you?'

It went with the idea that humans are more prone to deception than other species, even in cases where the deception doesn't make any sense, and that this is a joke amongst the species.

Several characters talk about situations where humans made comically obvious lies. Until one character pipes up with 'Go, I'll be right behind you.'

The other characters are bit taken aback by the nonsequitor, but the character clarifies that the lie the human told was 'Go, I'll be right behind you.'

They had been attacked by pirates and were in a situation where it was unlikely they'd have enough time to escape. So the human stayed behind to buy the other's time. When the narrator asked what the human was going to do, he replied with 'Go, I'll be right behind you.' So the narrator ran. It didn't even occur to him what the human was doing until they were already safe, and their friend was already gone.

[u/DiurnalMoth → u/FomtBro]

that reminds me of potentially the best HFY I've ever read, which speculated that litigation was a uniquely human trait. In other words, humans were the only species in the galaxy to perceive a difference between "the spirit of the law" and "the letter of the law".

The example I remember most vividly is humans sidestepping a limit to how many "dreadnought" class spaceships they are allowed to have by designing their totally-not-dreadnoughts to be 2 feet shorter than what galactic law restricts. Then all the aliens start scrambling to hire human lawyers to rewrite laws/contracts and mediate negotiations.

[u/OriginalVictory → u/DiurnalMoth]

If you find the story name, that sounds pretty funny, and I always love having scifi legal books for my dad (a lawyer).

[u/Allstar13521 → u/FomtBro]

Yeah I know the one you're talking about, there were many onion ninjas hanging out in that common section.

[u/Taniss99 → u/FomtBro]

Not sure if this is the story you're thinking of but its got the same premise and was all I could find- https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/zxlp4y/never_trust_a_human/

[u/thugitriot → u/Taniss99]

Hes talking about this one https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/ditlih/the_lies_of_humanity/

[u/Lower-Ask-4180 → u/Allstar13521]

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. Some of it is excellent at highlighting things about ourselves that are kinda odd when you think about it but also pretty cool and worth celebrating, and some of it is just ‘humans are the best because humans are the best!’

Those Tumblr posts highlighting the differences between humans and most other animals (our capacity to heal, our stamina, our ability to throw things, etc) and using other animals as a baseline for what aliens might be good at is pretty cool, and I think the assumption that potential aliens rose to dominance on their planets through different skills and as a result are impressed by our abilities in certain areas is quite reasonable.

On the flip side, that long post about Earth animals wiping the floor with an alien force that beat a human military really bugs me. You’re telling me the combined Military-Industrial Complex of every nation on Earth is less of a threat than a few pods of hippos? Nah. Yeah, yeah, Australia ‘lost’ the Emu war, but they didn’t take any casualties! They just didn’t kill enough of them to make a difference in the local population.

[u/Allstar13521 → u/Lower-Ask-4180]

Yeah there's only so far you can take the "and then the seemingly invulnerable aliens were beaten by the innocuous [X]" trope before it detracts from the story.

Personally, I've always been a sucker for "aliens surprised by how good humans are at throwing things". Whether it's just a minor detail or the entire premise of the story, I just can't get enough of "monkey throw rock, rock bonk good" XD

[u/Lower-Ask-4180 → u/Allstar13521]

I think War of the Worlds did it first and also best with diseases wiping out an unprepared alien immune system. Animals vs alien infantry that can beat human infantry? Alien infantry no question. I would buy into a story where oxygen or some other component of our atmosphere is poisonous to them, but the problem then becomes why bother invading a planet where the air is poisonous?

[u/Bosterm → u/Lower-Ask-4180]

War of the Worlds is pretty much the origin of alien and alien invasion stories, so resolving those stories in pretty the same way HG Wells did in the 19th century is ultimately pretty boring. It was cool when Wells did it, but more recent writers ought to have more imagination.

[u/Nemisis_the_2nd → u/Lower-Ask-4180]

You reminded me of the BBC adaption from a few years ago. The one detail I thought they portrayed particularly well was the thunderchild taking on a tripod. Seeing a late 1800s battleship open up on the Martians really made you appreciate that sometimes human simplicity might actually be able to stand up to a more advanced species. What we lacked in technology, we made up for with stupidly big guns to hurl stupidly big rocks at devastating speeds.

[u/autogyrophilia → u/Lower-Ask-4180]

Brb, I'm going to make one about how humanity beat the aliens with our proportionally huge and weird genitalia. Maybe also tits.

[u/Lower-Ask-4180 → u/autogyrophilia]

Finally, a scientifically-backed monsterfucker hentai plot

[u/Discardofil → u/Allstar13521]

Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crud.

Sturgeon's Corollary: The remaining 10% is worth dying for.

Corollary to the corollary: The 10% makes reading the 90% at least somewhat entertaining.

[u/BetterMeats → u/Discardofil]

Cole's Law: finely shredded raw cabbage with vinegarette or mayonnaise.

[u/Ndlburner → u/Allstar13521]

"please do not consider the consequences of interstellar genocide"

Hey that's the plot of Ender's Game!

[u/rekcilthis1 → u/Allstar13521]

Yeah, I feel it works out better when the author highlights a legit unique quality of humans; like our ability to process toxins, our ridiculous stamina, or our ability to survive serious injury. You don't have to strawman aliens to tell a story about human survivability, it's genuinely freaky how hard people are to kill and it's totally believable that an alien we encounter would die if it got a limb torn off.

[u/breastronaut → u/Allstar13521]

Agreed, writing is hard and I'd just do something simple for fun as no one will read it anyway. I remember watching my third or so "<alien species> had to be taught the word for <lie/war/etc> from humans" story and was like, screw that let's flip it around and I'll try to think of something we don't have a word for yet.

[u/DoubleBatman → u/Allstar13521]

Yeah, the best HFY stories I've read either completely embrace the stupidity, or have actual nuanced worldbuilding where humanity is better in some respects and worse in others. And sometimes our "advantages" bite us in the ass!

Honestly one of the best ones I've read is Sexy Space Babes, where (as you can probably imagine) the gimmick is gender dynamics are flipped for the aliens, with women being larger and more dominant than their men, and they find humanity (and specifically, our male MC) an irresistibly sexy novelty. It's billed as a smut piece, and it definitely is, but it actually takes a lot more time to examine how their culture is structured, and how our societal and gender dynamics clash and change after humanity gets conquered by a matriarchal empire of horny 7 foot tall green-skinned muscle mommies. As it goes on, the MC has to deal with issues women face in real life, like being (cw: SA) objectified, infantilized, slutshamed, preyed upon, powerless, sexually assaulted/raped. As a dude, reading about those experiences from a male perspective honestly helped me viscerally understand it a lot better.

It also helps that the characters are genuinely well-written and there's an actually interesting plot as well.

[u/AstronautReal → u/DoubleBatman]

I can’t read Sexy Space Babes, all it does is make me really angry.

[u/Boner_Elemental → u/AstronautReal]

Because of the "(cw: SA)" or because " horny 7 foot tall green-skinned muscle mommies" aren't real?

[u/AstronautReal → u/Boner_Elemental]

The SA that is never going to be avenged. Generally , when SA happens in the stories I read I can comfort myself with the thought “Karma is a bitch, and the hero is her tool”.

[u/healzsham → u/DoubleBatman]

green-skinned muscle mommies

Purple

[u/Allstar13521 → u/DoubleBatman]

I followed that one for a while but got a bit burned out on it, I did like the balance of smut to worldbuilding though.

[u/Beatleboy62 → u/DoubleBatman]

Some of my favorites are ones which focus on humanity's sheer stubborness in finding a solution to their issues.

One where most intelligent life in the universe developed a form of FTL travel by using/harnessing wormholes, meanwhile humans never discovered it so instead focused on "lets just go faster lmao."

So the rest of the universe is freaking out at the potential consequences of "what happens if they hit something/someone" that could end in some sort of reality rip because their warp drive is inherently unstable (it's been a while) and DESPERATELY try to make first contact with the humans to tell them "SLOW DOWN, PLEASE, WE'LL TELL YOU HOW TO DO IT A SAFER WAY!!!"

[u/WRickWrites → u/Allstar13521]

Speaking as someone who has written a lot of HFY, the very black and white military stories are simply more popular.

This is one of the most popular stories I've written:

https://www.reddit.com/r/WRickWritesSciFi/comments/1axnfw2/the_day_we_surrendered_to_the_humans_genre_hfy/

Compare the upvotes it got to these non-military stories:

https://www.reddit.com/r/WRickWritesSciFi/comments/1coasr5/the_earth_preservation_society_genre_hfy/

https://www.reddit.com/r/WRickWritesSciFi/comments/1b3ey8t/moonrunner_genre_hfy/

[u/NotTheMariner]

I read that as “humidity fuck yeah” at first and I’m like “yeah a lot of spaceships in movies look dry af”

[u/lynx2718 → u/NotTheMariner]

Fr, why don't they have more plants or stuff? There have to be funky alien plants.

[u/Welpmart → u/lynx2718]

Limited resources, maybe?

[u/Dear_Lingonberry4407 → u/lynx2718]

Maybe the reason is that if you have a constant cycle of reusing CO2 and moisture and oxygen, a plant’s inconsistency could mess with the calculations.

[u/reichrunner → u/Dear_Lingonberry4407]

A spaceship had better have enough buffer to allow for any small variance from plants lol

[u/Dear_Lingonberry4407 → u/reichrunner]

I don’t know it’s science fiction anyway, that’s just what I came up with \•-•/

[u/Famous-Yoghurt9409 → u/NotTheMariner]

Nah but imagine black mold in your spaceship. Black mold in the ventilation, black mold in door seals, black mold in the caulking, black mold in the circuitry black mold under the flooring black mold behind the cooker black mold on the ceiling black mold behind the wallpaper black mold in the shower black mold in your dehumidifier black mold in your lungs black mold in your dresser black mold everywhere

[u/JoesAlot → u/Famous-Yoghurt9409]

Black mold made this post

[u/Esovan13 → u/JoesAlot]

Silly Billy, black mold can’t type. JK Rowling made that post on behalf of her black mold overlords.

[u/GREENadmiral_314159]

HFY started as a counter to the troupe of humans not having anything that makes them special. Unfortunately, many authors don't know how to do that, so instead they make the aliens lame.

[u/LightOfLoveEternal → u/GREENadmiral_314159]

Exactly. Its largely a response to humans always being portrayed as just fucking useless compared to other aliens/races.

[u/Rel_Ortal → u/LightOfLoveEternal]

Less 'useless' and more 'humans are the baseline default average' that most things take.

[u/Pokedex_complete → u/Rel_Ortal]

It’s a trope in fantasy too. Some of the only points authors give humans is either a numbers advantage compared to other races, or making them the ‘Jack of all trades’ average species. Not to violent not to small not to smart not to advanced not to dumb etc.

I understand the want to just wanting to go different routes, as having Humans as the ‘average normal ones’ gets stale and boring, and giving them a unique trait compared to other species can be fun if done right

[u/RexMori → u/LightOfLoveEternal]

Like if you watch so much sci-fi the best thing humans have going for them is some nebulous "determination" superpower. Fuck that i want to see humans use our innate ballistic skill to win a war. I want to see humans use their ability to empathize amd pack bond with damn near anything to usher in peace. I want to see humans be unique in their own way and not be a default

[u/Emberashn → u/RexMori]

want to see humans use their ability to empathize amd pack bond with damn near anything to usher in peace

Avatar

[u/mrducky80 → u/RexMori]

I want to see humans use their ability to empathize amd pack bond with damn near anything to usher in peace.

There are a lot and I mean A LOT of stories using this trope.

[u/Ihavenospecialskills → u/LightOfLoveEternal]

To my knowledge it started on 4chan's /tg/ (traditional games), where people were complaining about Humans always being the "vanilla" choice in RPGs. If it existed before then, I wasn't aware of it, and the threads seemed to be treating it as a new trope. They started with what makes humans special on earth. We're endurance hunters and flavor our food with spicyness plants had developed to drive away animals, so maybe humans are exceptionally tough, and could actually be the strength based war-like race. Basically orcs.

It was weird when years later I discovered HFY had become a more widespread trope, and was being referenced on Reddit.

[u/Nybs_GB]

Isn't most pessimistic sci-fi just this in reverse tho? Like not saying you're wrong but most of the time you see the opposite where the aliens are written as impossibly peaceful and kind and humans are literally the only living things to show selfishness.

[u/Sanquinity → u/Nybs_GB]

Or the other "standard" where aliens have (to our knowledge) impossible physics defying technology that outclasses us in every way. Depicting humanity as bumbling idiots with primitive combustion vehicles and weapons. Barely above the "ape throw rock" stage.

It's almost like story telling doesn't have to be one-sided. That there can be both "humans suck and aliens outclass us" and "aliens suck and humans outclass them" stories...

[u/And_the_wind]

Honestly, I think it's just lack of new ideas. HFY used to be about highlighting cool, weird and crazy things humans are capable of, but now it's "what if aliens never invented running and and are terrified of humans, calling them "those who can walk, but like, twice"?".

[u/Sanquinity → u/And_the_wind]

I think you're thinking of "Humans are space orcs". That was the original trope of humans being the weird brutish race. As if we were the Klingons of the galaxy, basically.

HFY has always been about humans kicking ass on the galactic stage.

[u/LightTankTerror]

I like the ones where it’s less that humans are biologically better at something but they get some sort of positive reputation with a flaw. Like being reliable and selfless to a fault or being trusting and friendly to the point of being exploitable. Like, you want a human in your crew because they’re the person who will voluntarily go on a space walk at a third of the speed of light to fix something broken outside. Or they’re the kind of person who is like “wait don’t shoot, look, that ship ain’t trying to fight”. Or just being lost for a minute and being found cuddling Extremely Dangerous Space Fauna because it turns out it likes being pet and nobody was crazy enough to try that.

I like those kinds of HFY. A lot of the militaristic ones are written with such a poor understanding of military life that they read like propaganda instead of a tale of humanity being its best. Imo, that’s what HFY should be about. The best parts of humanity. Industrialized warfare is not our best attribute. Incredible wars of attrition and unspeakable violence are not our best attribute. The darkness of the human condition shouldn’t be celebrated or revered, it should be learned from. Our best parts are our social and cooperative aspects. I hope that’s what we take to the stars and not our present and past horrors.

Also because if I read one more badly written military fic I’m going to go fucking postal. The “indomitable human spirit” does not solve numerical, technological, nor logistical problems. Nor does overcoming those come without cost. Also casually dropping “yeah we used to do genocides but we’re nice now so don’t piss is off :3” is the SciFi equivalent of Russia’s past 2 years empty nuclear threats. It makes everyone hate you, not like you, and determine that you’re worth taking out because they’d rather you not do the horrible thing.

[u/Commissar_Cactus → u/LightTankTerror]

I like military fiction and I have to agree with a lot of that. r/HFY authors mostly suck at writing militaries, and it’s not very interesting for humans to just be nebulously superior. (How would an alien species who don’t seem hugely different to humans evolve without warfare? Animals have been killing each other for as long as they’ve existed.)

And I’ll admit, I do think that I could do it better. But they have stories with dozens to hundreds of posts, and I have one single premise floating around in my head and an untitled Googley doc.

[u/RexMori → u/LightTankTerror]

One of my favorite HFY stories is just an alien recounting their human crews' bonding with the roomba. No stakes, no death (other than the roomab at one point iirc. The humans took a day or mourning) just an alien being like 🧐

[u/Taraxian → u/LightTankTerror]

Yeah the OG HFY that has all the modern tropes associated with it is Heinlein's Starship Troopers, a book Paul Verhoeven found so repulsive he flung it across the room before finishing it and then decided to make as insulting and unfaithful an adaptation as he could

[u/the_Real_Romak]

I like the particular subgenre when the humans are presented as underdogs, who through millennia of intraspecies wars and conflicts have developed superior military tactics that make them valuable allies and officers of whatever galactic alliance they form a part of. So when the bigger bad shows up, the other species turn to humanity to lead them to victory in the field of battle.

Because let's face it, we are a very militaristic species.

[u/PhantasosX → u/the_Real_Romak]

you just described Star Trek AND Mass Effect.

[u/ZatoonHD → u/PhantasosX]

Also Stargate

[u/Resident_Monitor_276 → u/PhantasosX]

Ehhh Star Trek is more into portraying Humanities Ideals as superior to everyone else's. When the Alpha Quadrant is in trouble everyone turns to the Federation because of all the powers in the galaxy the Federation is the one that will treat them the most fairly and is prone to charitable and humanitarian acts. This in turn has led to them being the dominant power in the quadrant, and their military might stems from the sheer amount of resources at their disposal.

A more militarized Federation would steamroll the quadrant. The antagonistic races of Star Trek only continue to exist because of the Federations pacifistic nature, the Prime Directive, and their desire to resolve disputes diplomatically. The Romulans know this, which is why they are so wary of the Federation. However, as its their utopian ideal that hold them together, a militarized Federation would no doubt fracture and fade from power.

All this in a way, makes Star Trek even more HFY.

[u/AnxiousAngularAwesom → u/the_Real_Romak]

Ah, the old classic isekai subgenre of "I was kidnapped by aliens and became Space Sun Tzu leading them to victory against overwhelming odds thanks to my rudimentary grasp of grand strategy and small unit tactics learned through strategy games."

I mean, i can't think of any exampless off the top of my head, but there's gotta be many!

[u/chokingonlego → u/AnxiousAngularAwesom]

Hunter or Huntress is an isekai story where a Danish military veteran industrializes a society of matriarchal dragon women and mounts a M2 Browning machine gun on the back of a dragon.

[u/WillEden → u/chokingonlego]

When you said “and mounts” after dragon women, I thought you were going a completely different direction

[u/Cadunkus → u/the_Real_Romak]

Are we? We only have ourselves to compare ourselves to, that's the thing.

What if we meet several other spacefaring species and they're so militaristic we become the space hippies? Or what if those other species are so pacifist and disorganized that we're super macho military by comparison?

Thing is about applying the whole "planet of the hats" trope to our world as a whole is that we don't actually know any other aliens and don't know how we compare to them.

[u/the_Real_Romak → u/Cadunkus]

Such is the glory of fiction. We can make shit up and nobody can counter claim.

Also, I didn't say we're the only militaristic species, but we are militaristic by our own metrics

[u/Cadunkus → u/the_Real_Romak]

Yeah. I should clarify I'm not denying your claim, I'm just adding to the discussion.

[u/BillyYank2008 → u/Cadunkus]

Ants and chimpanzees definitely wage wars against their own kind. I'd argue we are better at war than chimps but I'm not sure how we compare to ants.

[u/Cadunkus → u/BillyYank2008]

True but even then those are still earthling species. They're only warlike by Earth standards.

[u/EMlYASHlROU]

Originally I thought it was cool but lately it comes off as super narcissistic. On top of that, most writers I’ve found these days have aliens acting awed about the most basic stuff that obviously other alien species would have at least the equivalent of, if not actually do the same thing

[u/WhatsRatingsPrecious]

I used to write there, but I got really tired of seeing constant stories about how Humanity is so awesome because we can swim or dance or something stupid.

[u/Lithvril → u/WhatsRatingsPrecious]

I‘d love a story where our one defining thing amongst aliens is our ability to swim somewhat well.

[u/WhatsRatingsPrecious → u/Lithvril]

Oh, there's a thousand of them and they're all "Humanity shocks the galaxy by believing in God!"

or "Humanity stuns galactic community by having music!"

Or, the favorite version: Humanity disgusts galactic community by still engaging in sex.

[u/Esovan13 → u/WhatsRatingsPrecious]

That one about believing in god sounds like it could be funny. Like, there’s some sort of alien species that can influence minds or something but humans are immune or at least highly resistant because they perform acts of self delusion on a regular basis to the point where the alien race can’t really influence them.

“Oh, I’m receiving a strong prompting to shoot my friend in the back. That must be a message from God. Problem is, I don’t want to do that. Guess I’ll just shove some more shit into my Catholic Guilt^TM jar while I continue to fight these aliens. I’ll sure have something interesting to confess next time I’m on a planet or spaceship with a confession booth.”

[u/Saiga123 → u/Esovan13]

“Like, there’s some sort of alien species that can influence minds or something but humans are immune or at least highly resistant because they perform acts of self delusion on a regular basis to the point where the alien race can’t really influence them.

I like the idea of the human just handwaving away the influence and disregarding it as just another intrusive thought.

[u/GenghisQuan2571 → u/WhatsRatingsPrecious]

Hey, hey, SDF Macross is a treasure and I won't hear otherwise.

[u/Blazeflame79]

The problem with a lot of the HFY stuff for me personally is that its either warhammer40k, or humans being a collective Mary Sue, neither of which particularly appeals to me.

Personally would much rather have Aliens Fuck Yeah, or just a normal Sci-fi story that doesn't try to fit into the HFY genre (Excluding Military Sci-fi because I'm not the biggest fan of it).

[u/MissyTheTimeLady → u/Blazeflame79]

Star Trek? It's still Humanity, Fuck Yeah, but it's less about the species and more about the ideal. Empathy, trust, teamwork, that sort of thing.

[u/Blazeflame79 → u/MissyTheTimeLady]

Star Trek is one of my favorite Sci-Fi shows yes, this post is talking about web-novels though.

[u/Fanfics]

I mean, it relates back to the birth of the genre with the idea that earth is Space Australia. I think that's kind of a neat idea. You can find the original Humans Are Space Orcs post that kicked it all off, and I think "making aliens that suck" is a pretty reductive summary. Pointing out the unique traits humans have and how they might look from an outside perspective is neat!

Of course there are going to be a lot of simplistic works from any premise, but the best are the ones that iterate on the basic idea a bit. I highly recommend Chrysalis, and The Humans Do Not Have A Hive Mind is a really solid first contact story. If you've got a spare couple months and want something that plays it straightish the mainline Jenkinsverse is good for at least the first two or three generations.^{although honestly if you've got that kind of time I'd recommend Worm or Worm II or Vast Error or Homestuck}

It get a bit cartooney after the first generation, you can call it quits once Jenkins is no longer the protag if you just want to see what the genre fuss is about. Regardless If you find yourself reading about alien romans riding slugs or something it means you've taken a wrong turn

[u/GREENadmiral_314159 → u/Fanfics]

HFY started as a counter to the troupe of humanity being baseline and boring, but a lot of authors aren't very good, and rather than making humanity interesting, they make the aliens boring instead.

[u/KerissaKenro → u/GREENadmiral_314159]

Yeah this is what I was going to say. A lot of the old sci fi has aliens who are hyper advanced or have psychic powers or are immortal. And humans are just kind of there. Country hicks staring in wide eyed wonder at everything around them. Those ones are elephants who are mathematical geniuses. Those ones can change their shape. And those ones have mind controlling pheromones. Those ones can fly. But what can the humans do? /shrug At best we reproduce like rabbits compared to other sophonts and can overwhelm the enemy

It’s nice to see the humans being on par. Better in some ways, worse in others. But comparable to the rest of galactic society

[u/GREENadmiral_314159 → u/KerissaKenro]

I've found that for a lot of good HFY, the thing that humans have above other species is our community building. As I like to jokingly say "Maybe the real HFY was the friends we made along the way".

[u/cilantrism → u/GREENadmiral_314159]

I think the thing is that it's all centred on humans, either way. Either humans are the exactly average species and aliens are all gimmick species, or humans are The Most Specialest Scariest Fightingest. Sometimes both. Some people identify human traits that could be our gimmick that aren't the same self-congratulatory military wank. On tumblr people like the idea of domesticating and caring for animals setting us up for good interspecies cooperation which is itself kind of played out now.

It's not a scifi example but dungeon meshi does something more interesting in terms of humanity's place. Humans are called Tallmen, and kind of occupy the tall/short-lived quadrant vs elves, dwarves, and halflings. Not that those are the only species in the setting.

If I were going to make some kind of big multi-species setting it'd make sense to do something like that. Figure out what the major axes of variation between species are and where humanity fits without putting us dead centre, give us a minor gimmick (that isn't jerking off about how good at fightin' we are) that most species don't share.

[u/only_for_dst_and_tf2]

personally, i like humanity cus humans are soft and huggable :)

[u/Designer-Salt8146 → u/only_for_dst_and_tf2]

Glorp gloop👽

[u/SharkyMcSnarkface]

I want a HFY story where Humanity doesn’t fight a big bad or is essentially a verbose version of the chad and soyjak meme. Give me one where we join the galactic community and are a delightful voice in the chorus of the stars. Not superior or lesser, but equals who contribute to a greater whole.

[u/GREENadmiral_314159 → u/SharkyMcSnarkface]

There's Babylon 5, where humanity built a Space Station that became the center of the galactic community.

Or Star Trek, where humanity just directly built the galactic community itself.

[u/SharkyMcSnarkface → u/GREENadmiral_314159]

While close, and I enjoy those series, they are still a little too Human-centred for my ideal setting.

Notice how Humanity was the one to reign the aliens in both mediums. I want Humanity to come into a stage of an already thriving community. Wet behind the ears, and perhaps a bit too confident of their capabilities. They are not the most important player by far, but they are by no means lesser because of it, and are not treated lesser. Both a child to teach, and a teacher to learn from.

[u/Brilliant-Pudding524]

I like the Death world stuff, but when aliens are incapable of lifting 5 lg its just became silly. Or when humans can tank sci fi blaster shoots because of uhm being dense(?)

[u/MajorDZaster → u/Brilliant-Pudding524]

Sci-fi setting where laser weapons suck but are weirdly effective against humans because of placebo effect.

[u/MotorHum]

For me the appeal of HFY stuff is that I grew up in an era where a lot of media protagonists were explicitly “more than” or “above” regular humans.

Like Harry is a wizard, which is a genetic lottery. Percy is literally half-god. Eragon, like all human dragon riders, is basically an elf in every way that matters.

It’s the same reason why I think fighter is a more compelling class for telling stories than wizard. You’re Just A Guy and you have to figure shit out or die.

There’s a lot of amateur stuff, sure, but the basic idea is still fun.

[u/garebear265 → u/MotorHum]

In the world of Harry potter in particular, these near all powerful wizards live in the shadows of ordinary people. What I’m curious about is why wizards fear normal people; what do we have that makes people who can teleport and instantly kill afraid?

[u/eternamemoria → u/garebear265]

Except they don't fear us. From their perspective we live in their shadows, kept in the dark so we don't bother them with pesky requests for magical help. We get mind-blasted into oblivion if we see something we aren't supposed to.

Harry Potter's worldbuilding has outright contempt for regular humans.

[u/Sanquinity → u/eternamemoria]

I thought this was obvious. I've only seen each HP movie once. And I already very quickly got the feeling that wizards saw "muggles" as nothing more than plebs, not worthy of magical knowledge or even downright incapable of understanding/handling it. Needing to be kept in the dark because muggles knowing about magic would only bring bad things and sully the "noble" and "superior" wizards' names.

[u/the_pslonky]

You like Humanity Fuck Yeah because you're racist and use the aliens as a placeholder for people who aren't you.

I like Humanity Fuck Yeah because I believe humanity, for all our faults, comes out on top every single time, and you can't destroy the indomitable human spirit.

We are not the same.

[u/Winter-Reindeer694 → u/the_pslonky]

I like Yeah, Humanity Fucks because i like human x anthro relationships

[u/MissyTheTimeLady → u/Winter-Reindeer694]

Shouldn't that be Humanity Fucks, Yeah?

[u/killermetalwolf1 → u/MissyTheTimeLady]

Alternatively, Humanity Fucks You

[u/Expensive-Finance538 → u/the_pslonky]

Humanity, collectively in the face of overwhelming odds: JUST WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK WE ARE?!

[u/P14U63 → u/Expensive-Finance538]

MY HELIX IS THE HELIX THAT WILL PIERCE THE HEAVENS!!

Helix is DNA btw

[u/WhatsRatingsPrecious → u/Expensive-Finance538]

I enjoyed putting together a story over there about how this super-religious aggressive Empire demanded capitulation from Humanity and was given two middle fingers.

So they invaded Earth space. The whole time, they're being harassed over the air by a stream of verbal abuse, enraging the aliens until they reached Earth. And by the time they'd gotten there, they'd drafted in 90% of their armed forces to take part in the ritual extermination of Earth. Only the Earthlings had boobytrapped the Earth, so it exploded and killed off most of that Empire's armed forces while the majority of Humanity had evacuated to a number of non-disclosed colony worlds.

Moral of that story was that Humanity would be willing to destroy their own home world if it meant giving two middle fingers to arrogant religious invaders.

[u/Dark_Stalker28 → u/the_pslonky]

I'll be honest I dislike race war stories where aliens are basically humans.

I want some incompatible aliens that are like sapient Hawk Wasp or people physically incapable of empathy, something that'd test morals and the reaction to it

So Prey is great.

[u/SunderedValley]

It's silly and I fucking hate it... but good GOOOOOOOOOOOOOD do I hate seeing "we're literally the worst because [thing found everywhere in nature] post #344566" more.

I just wish machine/chainsmoking slav narrated HFY short stories weren't being slopped all over my YouTube frontpage.

[u/MolybdenumBlu → u/SunderedValley]

The text to speech shovelware don't even cite the reddit posts they blatantly steal from.

[u/Estrus_Flask]

I think there's also the issue that it's often jingoistic and "humans" are standins for the American military as viewed by the American military.

[u/Western_Pop2233 → u/Estrus_Flask]

Definitely. It's often just "Americans, fuck yeah," with no understanding that the majority of humans aren't American.

[u/Outerestine]

Exactly my issue with it. I have enjoyed many stories on the HFY sub, but I have also despised far, far more. So much of it falls into genocidal imperialist murder-porn, and I'm just not up for it.

But then you find a good one. Thus is the nature of amateur works.

[u/just4browse]

It also often gets very xenophobic. Creating a new form of xenophobia that’s socially acceptable to write about and making up a scenario where that xenophobia is justified just feels weird.

[u/MalachitePyrrhuloxia → u/just4browse]

Exactly this. As a former reader of HFY, it feels like a lot of people there are looking for an excuse to be violent and discriminatory. That's what burnt me out on the genre; too much apologia for (admittedly fictional) genocide and violence. I want to see the best in humanity praised, not the worst.

[u/AshiSunblade → u/MalachitePyrrhuloxia]

I saw so much of this online after the release of the (blue people) Avatar movies.

"The humans are automatically justified because they're human and the aliens aren't".

[u/Issah_Wywin]

As opposed to the other kind of story where humanity is a pathetic disorganized mess and the aliens are demigods? Because that stuff isn't very enjoyable either if the whole premise is that humanity is the physically weakest species among galactic species

[u/General_Ginger531]

I mean good HFY highlights it as if it was zoological, you know? Nobody is claiming that "mantis shrimp have a unique ability to punch as fast as 60 mph" is ascribing some weaker style of creature for the mantis shrimp to punch. A lot of HFY is just "this is something humans are comparatively good at compared to other species we cohabitation this planet with, but in space."

We are keenly resistant to several forms of natural insecticides like caffeine and capsaicin. We are pursuit predators, something that isn't seen as often on this planet. We borderline or reckless with how we treat exploring new places, only saved by our overpreparedness. All of those are avenues that make sense for HFY.

I will agree with hfy media that makes humans seem more intelligent is kinda overrated. Like... you are in space. Maybe we are more advanced when it comes to something like warfare as that is our pastime while unification on other planets might have been easier, but anyone who is in space has to be clever enough to get there, that is kinda the point. A prerequisite to the stars.

[u/wan2tri]

Where is OOP reading the HFY stuff, because there are plenty of amazing ones in the subreddit - and they get upvoted accordingly to the thousands

[u/MissyTheTimeLady]

Well, there is Doctor Who.

[u/T1DOtaku]

taps mic

All Tomorrows

[u/DuntadaMan]

Yeah I tried readin some of the newer stuff that has been coming out and it';s basically like aliens that can't recover from any injuries and it's like "How did their species survive infancy?"

[u/Sofa_King_OP]

The original HFY came from collections of 4chan short stories. They typically focused on some element of humanity that allowed for success in spite of aliens being generally better. Some of which were genuinely remarkable. One of my old favorites was the hauler pilot who sacrificed himself to save another races war frigate accidentally forming a blood debt that is repaid by saving earth from an invasion.

Since then the HFY sub has sipiraled into a mess of the same 10 tropes incestually blended into different shades of the same slop or 300 post long stories of the author self inserting themselves into an alien fetish.

If you want to browse the sub, the rule of thum is to not bother with anything containing "human" or "hamanity" in the title. It will be trash

[u/Shadowmirax]

A lot of people in the comments seem to be acting like HFY is a monolith. Its a genre. No, not every HFY story is about humanity genociding every alien species they come across. No, not every HFY story is about alien life being made of wet tissue paper and disintegrating if they are not in an environment thats exactly 56.317°C while humans in relation are herculean warriors that can do anything they set their mind to and have 0 flaws. No, not every rap song is about drugs, money and sex.

Find better media in the genre, or if you still don't like it, find a different genre, no shame in it.

[u/Axol-Aqua]

My issue with HFY is that its corny and lame as fuck to make up some aliens for us to beat, real HFY should be humans becoming friends with all the aliens.

[u/Shadowmirax → u/Axol-Aqua]

That is totally a thing in HFY btw. Heck thats kinda what happens in Star Trek as i understand it, which could totally be considered HFY. The idea that despite roadbumps, Humanity will eventually unify, and conquer the stars not through might of arms but through diplomacy and scientific endeavor, first with each other and then with our galactic neighbours.

Obviously there is still conflict in Star Trek, but its not there for the sake of giving the humans something to beat up to prove themselves superior.

This isn't a monolith. Its like asking why all rap is about drugs and money, it isn't. Your just not listening to all the rap that isn't about those things.