Very roughly, the first two chapters here are the 'essay', the last two the 'writer's guide'. If you already have a good idea of what animalization is and are just looking for tips on how to avoid it, feel free to skip directly to Chapter Three or Four.
What is Turian Animalization?
Animalization isn't really an English word, at least not to my knowledge. I made it up for the purposes of talking about a trope in Mass Effect fanfiction where writers describe turian characters- and the turian species in general- as being, well, animal-like.
If you want to get technical, yes, turians are animals, just like humans are- they certainly aren't plants or fungi or whatever- but that's not what I'm talking about. Using legalese, I'd probably characterize animalization as the portrayal of turian physiology, psychology, or culture in a manner that ascribes to turians traits found in non-intelligent animals as opposed to intelligent beings. But legalese always trades comprehensibility for specificity, so that's probably not very helpful. Instead, think of animalization as anything a writer has a turian character- or turian culture in general- do that seems savage, primal, and/or predatory. It's making them act on instincts and emotion instead of reason, anything that seems backward or primitive, and it can take a lot of different forms.
Is there a 'fic where turians are built like armor-plated predatory cats, with razor-sharp claws and the ability to follow scent trails like a bloodhound and a tendency to growl when angry? Animalization. Is there a 'fic where turian pair-bonding involves the male biting the female on the neck after she goes into heat, and from then on they are physically only capable of mating with one another? Animalization again. Is there a 'fic where turian soldiers are organized into Legions and go into battle with a war chant and challenge their fellows to close combat for the right to command or to win the hand of a mate? That's animalization too.
Really, the best intuitive way to describe it is that animalization is something- or a collection of small, harmless somethings all added up- where if a group of humans suddenly started doing it on Earth, the 911 calls or newspaper editorials would very probably end up using some variant of the phrase "acting like a wild animal". It sounds like a weirdly specific thing to look out for, and it is- to me, at least, that makes the fact that this exact same pattern is so widespread in so many different stories all the more concerning.
As a side note, there's already an English word for something very much like this: atavism. But that's less user-friendly, and more to the point it implies some sort of internal genesis within the ativist. In-universe, I would have no problem describing animalized turians as atavistic, but out-of-universe, in the world of fanfiction where this guide is intended to be read and put into practice, I would say the story's writer was animalizing them.
An Aside: Physiological Versus Cultural Animalization
It's not a hard-and-fast distinction and there is necessarily some overlap, but oftentimes it is useful to break up animalization into a physiological and cultural component.
Physiological animalization involves anything done to turian anatomy or behavior on a personal level that makes them more reliant on instinct or other biological causes of behavior, or makes them more 'predatory' or 'savage' in appearance and mannerism- it makes an individual turian, in isolation or in interaction with other characters, look or act more similarly to an actual wild animal.
Cultural animalization involves anything from turian-turian social interactions to the policies of the Hierarchy as a whole. Sometimes it makes turian societies "work" like social, pack-based animals like wolves; other times it draws influence from very early human societies like the Spartans or Romans- not so much animal as tribal, but the backwardness is still there.
Of the three examples presented above, the first two are mostly physiological, and the last is mostly cultural.
But Why Turians?
If you're asking why this guide is about turians, it's partially because I'm a shameless turian fanboy who reads and writes mostly turian-centric stories, so that is the form of animalization I am most familiar with. But it's also because turians are the species animalization seems to disproportionately target in Mass Effect fanfiction. You never hear about salarians challenging each other to hand-to-hand combat over a female in heat, now do you?
Ok, So Why Does Animalization Disproportionately Target Turians?
The short answer is, I have no idea.
The long answer is that several people in communities I've discussed the issue with (mostly on Library of the Damned) have floated theories about why:
I initially suspected that it was because Bioware did a lot less to develop turian physiology and culture than they did for many of the other races and mediocre fanthors filled in the gaps with inferior product, but now I'm not so sure.
A lot of the worst animalization occurs in Shepard-Garrus "romance" 'fics and the theory has been floated that the writers of these things just find animalized turians sexier (which has some rather uncomfortable implications on its own), but its hard to separate out that trend from those 'fics increased focus on turian... urmm... anatomy in general.
An anonymous commenter here suggested that Saren Arterius's freakout in the beginning of Mass Effect 1 may have had a hand in this portrayal.
A few people have also proposed that it's just because turians are one of the more physiologically alien species in Mass Effect and have the added bonus of being physically bigger than humans, so people just naturally assume that they are monsters.
On the cultural angle, people have thrown out everything from the turians' pseudo-Latin naming conventions making authors think they must be 'ancient' to authors assuming that any culture with a militaristic bent must be the Sangheili or the Klingons, to authors confusing and misinterpreting canonical statements about how 'you'll only see a turian's back when he's dead' into their entire society being the Spartans or whatever.
I really don't think there's a good way to disambiguate all of these theories, and I suspect that what is going on is a mixture of a lot of different things that vary from story to story and author to author. I do not, however, suppose that in the grand scheme of things it really matters. We can go over and over and over possible reasons why animalization exists, but the fact is it does. And that is a problem.