#uses my reporter oc married to the character bioware most wants you to hate as my mouthpiece for everything that makes me mad in m.e.

[lieutenantabrudas]

Skewed Results

For @flashfictionfridayofficial's prompt: "Reporting the Scoop"

Mostly inspired by that one line Allers has in ME3 about why human women are preferred reporters by all the species. Ma'am you are a human woman working for a human news station on a human warship in a very human-biased game. I do not believe you. So have Teia, an award-winning turian journalist, with the counterargument, feat. her husband who's also famous for something I guess.

CW for brief mentions of violence, nothing graphic

The problem with living on the Citadel was that too many doors slid open automatically. There was nothing satisfying about stomping through a door that was already opening for you when you got to it. Teia's hands itched, longing for something solid she could bang.

She settled for slamming her bag down on the little table by the front door. The crashes of all the little baubles she’d hung from it cascading against the synth-wood at least did something for her.

From the narrow entryway hall, she just barely caught a flash of movement on the couch ahead. “Teia?”

She was already halfway there by the time Ierian dragged himself free from his favorite spot to stick his head over the back. Teal eyes looked up at her, wide and gentle and so very politely asking her to share whatever had upset her, and the rage boiling at the back of her throat tempered just a few degrees. Ierian was good at that. She paused in her tromping, then took a deep breath and continued a little bit slower, a little bit calmer. “Don’t mind me,” she puffed, clenching and unclenching her hands and pretending she wasn’t imagining how they might feel doing that around a delicate, unprotected throat. “Just – had a little disagreement at work, I’m fine.”

One brow plate went up, and Ierian turned and sat up as she rounded the end of the couch. “A little disagreement,” he echoed, flicking out one mandible to complete the skeptic look. “About what, whether or not obligate carnivores can go fully vegan? I told you last time, darling, you can’t reason with stupid or with xenophobes, and especially not with stupid xenophobes. Turians don’t have molars, and we need gizzard stones for eating vegetables, it’s as simple as that. Someone who can’t understand that shouldn’t be working in interspecies media.”

Another deep breath. The thick carpeting under her toe-claws and the gentle subvocals caressing her cowl as her husband spoke helped. “No, Veyetha moved back to Niacal, she’s not the problem,” she sighed, accepting Ierian’s offered hand and letting him tug her down to sit with him. “We have a new hire, Jocelyne Kinsley, and she’s so… y’know?”

“I don’t, actually.” Ierian scootched back into his corner, pulling Teia along with him, and reached over to pick up whatever drink he’d poured himself when he got home from work. “You should explain, in more words.”

Teia puffed out a noisy exhale, letting her head thump against his cowl. “Oh, she’s transferring in from Alliance NewsNet, so she’s got some unconscious bias to work out, which is fine, we all have them, it’s a process, but…”

Ierian took a sip of his drink. “But some people are louder about them than others.”

“Exactly.” Teia huffed and rolled to put her back to his chest and pull her knees up to her keel. “Apparently, there’s this stupid study she was throwing around about how like, human women make the most appealing reporters, because…” She pulled her mandibles in, trying to recall the bragging that had started the argument. “Visual similarities to asari, voice pitch to salarians… stupid things like that. Little shit.”

“Mm. What was the reasoning for turians, out of curiosity?”

“Oh, turian viewers were found to have no preference.” She flared her nasal plates and mandibles in a scowl. “We’ll watch anything as long as it’s about death, you know. Because we’re so violent as a species.”

Ierian rumbled thoughtfully, running his claws up and down her arm. “Well, to me, that sounds like heavy bias,” he pointed out. “I assume this new reporter is a human woman herself?”

Teia clicked her mandibles. “Yeah. She was really trying to say she expected a lot more human women on CNN, and she’s like, the start of a ‘new wave in interspecies journalism,’ or whatever. Mikse and I tried to explain that’s anthropocentric, but she just insisted.”

Ierian held out the glass for Teia to have a sip, too. Rum tickled her nasal plates. “Sounds to me like somebody should take a look at this study. Perhaps a somebody who’s an investigative journalist by trade.” He waited for her to take a drink, then took it back and had one himself. “Perhaps an investigative journalist who’s won multiple prestigious awards for her work, and is considered one of the galaxy’s most trusted voices on the nightly news.”

Teia paused, tapping her mandibles against her face, then snorted and shook her head. “She’ll say I’m just mad about things changing, or something rude like that,” she grumbled, even as she pulled up her omni-tool and opened a new search window.

“Then you can take her to HR over discriminatory viewpoints.” Ierian leaned back to watch her type. “I would think a prestigious network like Citadel NewsNet wouldn’t want someone like that on their payroll, wouldn’t you?”

Teia didn’t respond, focused on the search results. She didn’t even have to dig – ANN had plastered the study over three different specialty channels, with headlines bragging about science proving their reporters were preferred by all other species… “… ‘in a study funded by the Alliance Department for Xenosocial Research,’” she quoted, flicking out one mandible wryly. “Humanity has investigated and found humans are the bestest at everything, always, more after the break.”

Ierian chuckled through his purr, resting his chin on top of her head. “I expect if you read the study itself, their methods are flawed, as well. Somebody should write an editorial about it.”

Teia snorted, clicking into the first article and skimming for a link to the study. “I think you just want me to fight the ANN.”

“The ANN has decided I’m a xenophobe because I think humans should follow the same laws as the rest of the galaxy, Teia, I would love you to fight them.” He pressed a quick kiss to the top of her head, then prodded at her shoulder. "I'll make you your thinking tea. Have fun, dear."