Fera
zaeliasocs.bsky.social
Fera
@zaeliasocs.bsky.social
This is @zaelia.bsky.social's OC ramble account! I talk about my OCs and stories here.
Anyway, I'm just happy to ramble about this because it's been a prominent scene in my head for a while now. I feel it gives a good look at who she is behind her usual casual and humorous self. She does have a lot going on even into my AU's post-story. BUT I'll share more another time. ouo b
November 18, 2025 at 9:27 PM
strong willed, really. So I took that into my own hands! And now I took a perfectly good player character, turned them into an OC, and gave them trauma and anxiety! \ o/

Natalia goes kind of deep in her development, but she's been around for over 13 years, so that's pretty natural at this point.
November 18, 2025 at 9:27 PM
Shepard makes a few comments about their death, for instance, but they never seem bothered by it. It's just "oh yeah, that happened" beyond once or twice questioning their revived existence.

Needless to say, they don't portray mental health very well with Shepard. It's waved off as them being--
November 18, 2025 at 9:27 PM
I never liked how the trilogy treated Shepard. I get that you can't do too much to individualize the character for each person. So there's preset paths, but it always bothered me that they ignored going deeper into complex issues that you'd imagine would illicit a strong reaction/development.
November 18, 2025 at 9:27 PM
their questions about it, but they don't press out of respect. Though she inflicted the new wounds, Natalia still struggles with her morality and identity as a person. This trauma never really goes away, but she has a lot of more pressing concerns to deal with that make it so she can't focus on it.
November 18, 2025 at 9:27 PM
She cleans up the blood but she doesn't accept anyone healing it. Instead it's cleaned up, bandaged, and left to heal on its own. She later jokes about it when asked, saying she's just trying to match Garrus to make him feel better about his own bandaged injury. Others sense that she's dodging--
November 18, 2025 at 9:27 PM
Natalia stays at the sink for a bit, her head falling forward and letting the blood drip off her face into said sink. As she watches the blood drain, she simply ends up crying and feeling lost. She isn't alone now with Garrus, but she doesn't feel like she's managed to solve her issues at all.
November 18, 2025 at 9:27 PM
It takes her several moments of her experiencing that mental break before she starts realizing what she's done. The blood in her eye is a familiar feeling and it's what snaps her back to reality. It feels like the past. She calms but still experiences strong emotion that overwhelms her.
November 18, 2025 at 9:27 PM
for a bit just letting the blood run as she loses herself to her out of control emotions. She examines it and tells herself that she's her now. This means she's the version of her that she lost upon death. On the outside that's definitely not the case. She is still herself but she didn't accept it.
November 18, 2025 at 9:27 PM
a symbol of her humanity. She could restore it and feel more like herself, right? In that crazed state, and in that moment, she brings up her omni-tool and activates the blade extension. Without hesitation she carves the same wounds back onto her face and lets it all bleed. Natalia stands there--
November 18, 2025 at 9:27 PM
The more she thought, the worse it got. Natalia ended up breaking, her mind snapping in the moment and her emotions flooding her too quickly for her to process them. She starts crying again, this time in anger. If she couldn't be sure of herself, then she was going to restore what she took as--
November 18, 2025 at 9:27 PM
her face. This was to partly clean her face and to wake up, ground herself back to reality. Though the more she looked at herself in the mirror, the more Natalia hated her reflection. The scars were missing. They just weren't there. Did she lose her humanity? In some ways it felt like she did.
November 18, 2025 at 9:27 PM
Natalia didn't know if she agreed but accepted Garrus' words. They settled things calmly with Natalia feeling very apathetic once he left the room. She had a dead feeling about her like she'd given up. In an attempt to feel better, Natalia goes to her cabin's restroom and tries splashing water on--
November 18, 2025 at 9:27 PM
wasn't acting like herself. This is when she tried to brush him off but his persistence won out because it made her feel bad enough. She broke down crying and showed vulnerability for the first time in front of him. They did talk and Garrus did say he didn't see a difference between her then & now.
November 18, 2025 at 9:27 PM
fall into depression. Things got worse once she had Garrus back on her team. He was someone she knew before her death and someone she trusted. As he'd almost died on recruitment, Natalia didn't bother him about her issues. Garrus, however, was smarter than she'd expected and could tell that she--
November 18, 2025 at 9:27 PM
a scientific monstrosity pieced together. How much of her body was hers? Was anything used not a part of her DNA? Cloning technology exists but one could also use parts from another. It drove Natalia crazy and she'd have several moments where she'd distress herself enough that she'd cry and--
November 18, 2025 at 9:27 PM
didn't quite take to that. It plagued her that she was alive again despite what she'd heard about her body's condition post-death. Natalia started to spiral, wondering if she was still herself or not. She could be someone completely different and the memories false. She could have been a clone or--
November 18, 2025 at 9:27 PM
While she wasn't brought back at 100% and her face had scarring that had yet to be dealt with, the ones on her eyebrow were gone. In any case, dying and coming back suddenly from the dead was not the best experience. Even with people reassuring her that she was still herself despite everything, she-
November 18, 2025 at 9:27 PM
They were a sign of her humanity in her opinion. They defined her a bit in that way. So when she later died and was brought back to life, she found quite the problem with them having been removed via healing the body. The project that brought her back included a ton of cybernetics and tech.
November 18, 2025 at 9:27 PM
To her she was just doing what she thought any person should have done in her position. Natalia saw the official acknowledgments as pointless even if she took them. In a way she was modest/humble about it out of perspective.

The scars she kept though they could have been fixed. Natalia wanted them.
November 18, 2025 at 9:27 PM
These scars were a reminder of what she did and they were personal to her. Though given prestigious medals and awards, Natalia took the scars as permanent proof of her action and accomplishments. Medals and awards aren't really permanent and she always had a kind of negative opinion of them.
November 18, 2025 at 9:27 PM
a leader's role by choice when she realized how bad things were. Natalia successfully sealed the breach and rallied people around her to fight and repel the raid. In one of her fights she gained two scars through one of her eyebrows from a purposefully inflicted wound. They were treated and healed.
November 18, 2025 at 9:27 PM
Her profile in the game puts her as a spacer and war hero. That means she was born and raised on ships, always moving one to another with her parents and not having the typical stability. As a war hero she defended a colony from a devastating raid by criminals. During that event she stepped into--
November 18, 2025 at 9:27 PM
issues with being unable to breathe. If she struggles then it sends her into a panic attack and she becomes irrational and highly reactive. This is due to her having died by asphyxiation before. That death caused her a monumental amount of stress and uncertainty when she was brought back to life.
November 18, 2025 at 9:27 PM
In the Mass Effect trilogy, Shepard is progressively put through more and more difficult situations. Some lead to squadmates dying (some scripted and most others not). Natalia herself kind of gained a ton of trauma, contrary to what the games show for Shepard. For instance, Natalia has--
November 18, 2025 at 9:27 PM