#funnily enough one of my first thoughts was “oh sick the flag's color scheme is gonna look great alongside my nonbinary one”

[justsalpals]

Breaking News: Arson "I actively dislike looking at naked people" Justsalpals has finally tacked on an Ace label

[octerminal]

this might be a silly ask, but what are some trivial things about nadia? things like, favourite colour, animal, smell, touch, taste, things like that?

It’s not silly at all, I love any excuse to talk about my Shepard lol. Thank you so much for the ask!

Favorite Color

To be terribly predictable: black. I don’t think it’s something she’s conscious of, though. She just gravitates toward it without realizing, until one day on the SR-1 Ashley is like, “do you own anything that has color to it? Dress blues don’t count.” And she just hands Ashley one of her N7 color schemed items, and Ashley’s just like, “That doesn’t count either.” 

I think part of it is a comfort thing—it’s easier to blend in when she wears darker colors (if not black, then she favors grays; if she’s absolutely forced to wear something more color than not, she goes for dark hues like maroon, lilac, etc.). There’s also something to be said about how it reminds her of space, too. But…it’s also for practical reasons, lmao. Blood isn’t as noticeable.

Over the years I think she grows fond of certain shades of blue because she starts associating it with Kaidan. (Which is funny to think about, because who even knows what Kaidan’s favorite color is? But all of a sudden, whenever Shepard buys him something she’s always buying it in blue and he’s just like, I Guess This Is My Life Now. He does strike me as the type who’d like blue, though.)

Favorite Animal

I don’t really think she’s much of an animal person. She didn’t have pets growing up (unless you count the strays in her neighborhood, but after a certain point trying to bond with them served no purpose because they’d always go missing sooner or later) and as an Alliance marine who spends most of the year deployed in deep space doing Suspicious, Super Classified Shit even before the tours on the Normandy, she doesn’t have the time nor living space to take care of any as an adult. 

I think Joker is the one who first gives her a pet fish aboard the SR-2¹, and she’s just kind of like, “…uh, okay” and proceeds to let it die because looking after a fish is not particularly high on her list of priorities. But afterward, when she’s cleaning it up, she feels a weird pang of something², and the next time she visits the Citadel she impulse buys a replacement. Then it kind of grows from there, with the rest of the crew sometimes chipping in. (I feel like this is something Kasumi would absolutely delight in.) Grunt gets her a hamster instead of a fish because “it’s basically the same thing, right?”

She’s actually secretly pretty disappointed no one took care of her fish while she was under house arrest, because she was also secretly pretty proud of herself for keeping them all alive after the first one died.

Anyway, that doesn’t really answer your question, though, does it? I think she discovers she’s a dog person after the war when she gets a therapy one. Kaidan thinks it’s funny, because her personality is way more like a cat’s.

Favorite Smell

This is an interesting one. I feel like she’s probably grown accustomed to the artificial smells of space stations and ships, but she prefers, in James’ words, “real air.” I think she really likes going planetside and being able to take off her hardsuit’s helmet and just smell the air. Especially when it’s uncharted worlds like the ones you explore in the first game—that’s really exciting to her.

As far as specific scents go, I associate her with spices and woods, though in reality she really only smells like sweat and the Alliance issued soap she uses, because she’s certainly not the type to bother with fancy versions of things like that. She definitely likes how Kaidan smells (though she’d never admit that out loud, at least not during the trilogy) even though I imagine he smells much the same with the added bonus of eezo…if that even has a scent, lmao.

The other scent might be something like cinnamon, since she has very few intact memories of whatever family she had at birth, but she does remember a woman who always smelled like cinnamon.³

Favorite Touch

She definitely likes textured things. Smoothness unnerves her. This is actually a big reason why she never bothered healing any of her pre-Lazarus scars, even though the technology to do so definitely exists.⁴ She liked herself better with them; it felt more honest. She’s relieved when she starts accruing new scars not associated with her cybernetics after Cerberus brings her back.

As far as specific objects go, I think her equipment? Taking apart her guns and hardsuit to clean and feeling all their grooves frequently calms her.

Beyond that, honestly, Nadia is never going to be much of a words person, so physical touch is really her main language. It’s unfortunate for herself and everyone around her she’s not very good at it.⁵

Favorite Taste

I have a headcanon that one of the first things she does when she visits a new place (and has the time) is to make a beeline for any food joints. Since food was scarce growing up, I feel like it’s one of the few things she allows herself to indulge in without much guilt (within reason, anyway). She definitely spent a lot of time on the Citadel in the first two games checking out the various wards for hidden gems.

I have another headcanon⁶ that during her house arrest, she ditches James one night and sneaks off the compound partially because she’s getting stir crazy, partially because she’s just sick of the slop they serve in the cafeteria and she knows from her time on shore leave that wherever there’s an amassing of marines, there’s also going to be vendors nearby to take advantage. So, James has a heart attack thinking he’s lost track of The Very High Profile Commander Shepard, Who Very Much Needs To Stay Within The Alliance Headquarters Because (Political) Reasons, and Oh God, What Is Alliance Brass Going To Do To Me When They Find Out? What Is Anderson??? and then he gets pinged on his omni-tool that his credit chit has been flagged for suspicious activity at a location not too far from the compound and he heads over to find The Great Commander Shepard sitting on a bench near a food truck digging into a takeout container full of some, like, fusion, hipster-y food you’d find in most big cities. And she’s just like, “oh, you finally caught up, took you long enough, anyway here’s your share” and James can’t get over the fact The Great Commander Shepard robbed him and bought him food with his own money and then acted like she was the one treating him. 

Anyway, to actually answer your question…she’ll try anything at least once but she prefers savory over sweet, and especially spicy foods. But she does have a (guilty pleasure) sweet tooth for those delicate and pretty pastries, again because it’s definitely a luxury she never got growing up.

Favorite Hobby

You didn't ask about this one, but I think it fits with the general theme, so hopefully you don't mind lol.

I think before and during the trilogy, she didn't have a lot of time for hobbies that didn't also directly correlate with or benefit her work (e.g., exercising, tinkering with her equipment, programming), but she does have a couple. She likes taking pictures⁷, particularly of scenic views since "exploring space" was one of the biggest reasons why she signed up with the Alliance even though she knew she was trading one cage for another and was under no illusion she'd actually ever be doing good work for the Alliance. (The fact she ultimately does during the trilogy is...unexpected.) She just has this sense of wonder about the galaxy that never goes away, even when she's forced to repress every other emotion. So she likes to document it. (Sometimes she shares them, and I think it becomes something of an extranet meme because it's just so completely at odds with the rest of her social media presence—which is negligible—and also how she appears in interviews—which is not very complimentary—so everyone just kind of thinks it's funny.)

There's also the model ships, but like with the fish, I think someone else gets her started on those first. In my mind it's Miranda, who takes one look at how Shepard is coping in the second game and is like, "Why don't you [assemble some toy ships] and maybe you'll calm down.png" and well, to be fair...it does help, lmao. It's similar to when Shepard takes apart her guns or the like to clean them, only the end result is toy ships. Usually, her favorites are, funnily enough, enemy ships because they're more complicated to put together. (But she does have a soft spot for the SR-1, of course. And the Mako, even though that one doesn't exist in trilogy canon because BioWare exists to spite me.)

Post-war, she has a lot more downtime than she's comfortable with and to prevent herself from going stir crazy she picks up a few more. The main ones I've thought of center around restoration, like restoring obsolete tech or objects to make them functional again. I think she also picks up tinkering on cars and shuttles, partially due to Cortez' influence, partially due to the fact it was one of the jobs she had before she joined the Reds, partially due to her previous experience repairing her beloved Mako, and partially just because I imagine most of her recovery happens on Kaidan's family's orchard, and there's not a hell of a lot to do there.

So, basically: most of her favorite things to do generally involve taking things apart and putting them back together.

Thanks again for the ask! Sorry if this is way more than you anticipated and/or wanted, lmao. If it's not obvious by now, I have a tendency to ramble.

¹It’s because he feels guilty over and responsible for her death and subsequent “employment” with Cerberus, and he read somewhere fish are supposed to be relaxing or something, right? Maybe if he gets her a fish her face will stop doing that creepy glowing thing it’s doing. Not that he says any of that. He pretends it’s a joke gift. (EDI sees through it, obviously.)

²[Narrator voice] That feeling was loneliness.

³I envision this person being her grandmother.

⁴The other reason is because she thinks it’s a frivolous waste of resources, which is also the reason she doesn’t erase the renegade scars despite the fact she does actually hate those.

⁵Like, she gets better (marginally—she’s still never going to be touchy-feely with a lot of people, but at least she’ll one day be willing to sometimes hug her friends), but she definitely does not like touching most other people, and she does not like most other people touching her (even though she simultaneously craves it). Kaidan is really the only exception to this, but even he takes until the third game to really get to that point with her. Anderson is also something of an exception, but to a much lesser extent.

⁶This is actually a scene from a fic, if I could ever finish one of those anyway

⁷This is how I justify how many screenshots I take in game.