I have a few:
- Chosen ones, fate, destiny, &c. When you get down to it, a story with these themes is one where a single person or handful of people is ontologically, cosmically better and more important than everyone else. It’s eerily similar to that right-wing meme about how “most people are just NPCs” (though I disliked the trope before that meme ever took off).
- Way too much importance being given to bloodlines by the narrative (note, this is different from them being given importance by characters or societies in the story).
- All of the good characters are handsome and beautiful, while all of the evil characters are ugly and disfigured (with the possible exception of a femme fatale or two).
- Races that are inherently, unchangeably evil down to the last individual regardless of upbringing, society, or material circumstances.
Other lifeforms in the universe being basically humans with a bright shade of paint thrown on them.
Monogender lifeforms clearly made for fan-service and little more.
White guys that sound like Nolan North somehow still being the focus of the entire fucking galaxy.
Basically, if Mass Effect did it, I’m fucking sick of it.
This is one of the reasons I love Farscape. Sure, there were lots of funny-paint funny-nose-ridges humanoids. And lots of Leatherclad Fascist Space Australians. But the production team genuinely tried to make alien-looking aliens right from the start despite their budget and technology limitations. And as their budget improved they seemed to put all the extra money right into the puppets and prosthetics.
Of course Farscape did do the “a white human man is most important entity in the universe” thing. But I also forgive Farscape for that because John Crichton sure as hell didn’t want any of that attention, he wasn’t aiming to be a hero, he just wanted to fly under the radar and go home.