[quote=@Zyx] >I fail to see how writing a being without stereotypes is a bad thing. Note that I say being rather than human, as with humans or adjacent cultures to our own it's harder to do. Or prevent interpretation of such. [/quote] Depends on what you include in stereotypes, and getting into trouble about it doesn't necessarily mean it is actually a bad thing. They can be accurate or inaccurate or somewhere in that spectrum. They can also be positive or negative and have a lot of implications or very few. They can also be dealt with respectfully or disrespectfully. Delicate issues. A lot of it comes down to perception. The whole general "token" concept. If you're writing a woman who is in every way a male character except that you note in your intro post that she's a woman and you use female pronouns. That's one end of the issue. The other end is a character who is little more than a pile of preconceptions. If you write a Native American woman character during the days of the Wild West when one generation back her people roamed a huge chunk of Nebraska and moved with the seasons, but now her and her family have been moved to a reservation and they and their children are being taught new ways, new languages, and a new religion. If you write her in a way that is indistinguishable from a white male settler or a British railroad magnate, it's not gonna make some folks happy. It's not a very considerate way to write a character. (I used Native Americans as the example because I had some Native American characters in my Deadlands RP and was trying to figure out how to handle them right) There are fewer stereotypes with aliens and folks are less likely to care. More likely to just be bored with your writing if you go for 1950s greys without some humor or conspiracy or something to stand out.