Johnny Dhu's Intel Drop

Yeah, yeah, it's a writing issue. That's boring though. I want something fun that also makes sense.

I think the best way to approach it is by looking at the asari through the eyes of other species; namely, through the eyes of the salarians.

The salarians were the first living sentient species the asari came in contact with after they expanded out into the galaxy. For sixty years, it was just asari and "prothean" remnants scattered across different parts of space. For a species that lives for a thousand years or more, sixty years doesn't sound like much, but sixty years is still sixty years. No matter how long you live, you still experience time at a rate of one second per second. The asari would have been settling in quite well as the sentient race.

Things changed when the salarians showed up. There would have been major internal debates within both species' cultures on how to handle the situation. Wait-and-see attitudes don't work here: you need to figure out your politics now. First get your pantomimes and pidgins going, then work from there on building a common language to talk to each other. The asari would also be feeling threatened, as their cultural place in the galaxy is being contested by the presence of the salarians alone.

But the asari were fortunate: the first species they interacted with is largely matriarchal. Male salarians may not completely defer to the rare female dalatrasses in their society, but they do hold them with some reverence. Finding a species where every member can bear children (the "female" of live-bearing species)? You can easily imagine the male salarians giving asari some culturally-ingrained respect. Asari negotiators would pick up on that diplomatic advantage very quickly, and take advantage of it.

Sure, the salarians keep using their equivalent of she/her, and they define sex and life stages a little funny, but it's working for now. No sense in interrupting when you're coming out on top. The asari get to negotiate with an advantage, and all they have to suffer is a little bit of frustrating language.

As time went on and each new species came onto the scene, that translation quirk became locked in. Most species are sexually dimorphic, with specific male and female sexes. Languages changed, and so the asari became all-female instead.

Sure, it's frustrating for them. Aethyta gets a little miffed at your anthropocentric ass, Aria mocks the term "patriarch" by granting it onto a beaten foe, and every male of every species is walking about fetishizing your people, but who's going to go back to basics and fix the language now?

Renegade Femshep - Commission for @anthurak

https://web.archive.org/web/20260515113210/https://www.vulture.com/article/social-media-feeds-chaotic-good-projects-clipping.html

But I think that, much like Therapy Speak and its cutesy friends neurospicy and neurosparkly, words that might be useful for describing your own life can become cliché annoying jargon when someone else starts applying them to your experiences for you.

Some more ab practice with Tifa!

Fuck it, Mass Effect x Avatar: The Last Airbender.