#But yeah - If you look closely you'll see where the losses Sera's experienced have shaped her dream and how she moves forward through life?

[sakurarisen]

Sunflower, zinnia

Botanical Headcanons!

sunflower :   what brings your muse the most joy in life ? 

Her family,the beach, and seeing people happy and thriving. Sera is always at peace, content, and happy with her family - It’s with them she feels most at ease, and most relaxed. They know how to ease her anxieties and fears, to call them out and counter them and lay her mind at ease... They are warmth and peace. They’re comfort and rest, and to see them happy makes her happy, because it means she’s doing something right, and they enjoy having her around - And they’re leading their best lives.

It’s the same with seeing others happy - The world can be a cruel place, and to see others smiling, truly, fully, brightly smiling? It puts her soul at ease and a smile on her lips, as well. They deserve it (As does she, she’s learning, but she still will put others above herself), and knowing they’re finding happiness brings it to her, too, just as much as seeing kids, families, anyone really making the best of bad situations and never losing their smile - something that brings her hope, as well.

The beach is another one that puts her soul at ease and almost seems to transform her, taking the stresses, strains, and heartaches of life away with the tides. It’s cleansing and peaceful and Sera highly appreciates the sea and its beauty, and is able to spend hours there, just sitting on the sand, watching the tide and the waves, listening to the shoreline and the birds, the sunlight and water on her skin... Letting her sit there for a day can and will utterly transform her, just like letting her sit under the stars and allowing her to babble about the different legends and myths she’s heard in her travels will.

Prior to finding her family, it was others and the beach, same as above, but also geodes, sparkling, beautiful gifts she found once in a blue moon and were the only thing she allowed herself to collect not vital to her survival, as well as the stars.

zinnia :   how has the loss of fallen comrades and/or loved ones affected your muse ?   has it taught them anything or given them any new perspectives ?

Gonna put this one under a readmore for length, TW for mentions of: Death and abuse/child abuse

Sera’s definitely no stranger to loss. Growing up, she was sheltered by the middle kids of the family, Ami and Takeru - With their parents refusing to be parents, they took to trying to raise Sera in their stead to the point she considers her sister and brother to be far better parental figures than their mother and father ever were. Even under the abuse they faced, they never showed her anything but kindness, protection, and a smile, and on their death beds, expressed concern more for her than themselves. Losing them absolutely shattered Sera, who was only 9 when it happened, and resulted in her withdrawing and trying to rebel. What happened to Ami and Takeru sparked a desire in her to survive, and that’s been a trend that’s continued throughout her life.

Sera wants to honor her lost siblings’ lives in any way she can, and whether or not she’s realized it, they and that desire have been a major factor in her dream. Their kindness is something she’s adopted and there’s situations where she can be much like Ami, trying to diffuse and shield through that kindness, and channels both of her siblings in trying to internalize things while showing a smile to the world. They’re also the reason she sees a lot of things through a childish ‘fairy tale lens’ and has learned to use the stories as a means of understanding situations when nothing else works to help make sense of it - Ami would read her fairy tales and used the book to help try to teach her how to read until she and Takeru fell ill, and they’ve always stuck with her as much as their smiles have.

It’s similar to ‘losing’ @honorisen‘s Zack during the Nibelheim incident; though she knows he’s not gone due to the bond they share, it’s crushing to see the announcement of him being KIA. While she knows he isn’t gone, she has no proof and saying as much sounds ridiculous, and its difficult to not let the pain and heartache of ‘but what if he really is’ break through and settle in. Once more, without realizing it, he’s shaped how she follows her dream and her dream in general; she’s quicker to step n and help people. More impulsive, and by far more blunt in how she does it, though that she’s able to catch herself on and softens within a few months of it beginning (especially on realizing she’s pregnant with Shayan, something else that doesn’t help an unstable mental state). She takes on his name and tries to honor him by continuing his dream and life, and later, teaching their son all about him.  Like with Ami and Takeru, his lessons stick with her... But it takes a long time before she’s able to function again.

The difference is that later - losing Zack and the fact it comes with a mention of @warofthebeasts‘ Sephiroth also being supposedly KIA, furthering the pain and heartache with losing a friend who had been a welcome and wonderful companion on top of her fiance - is crushing enough to drive her to nearly lose herself. Though Sera, as an adult/older teen, is able to shape her dream and around honoring them and showing the world who they were as well and how amazing they were, losing her found family is crushing enough to nearly end her, and it’s only Shayan that keeps her going. Without hm, she may have fallen apart into nothingness - A thought she occasionally has that terrifies her.

Add in she’s lost everyone she knows in Midgar when she has to run and knows she can’t come back, with Shinra on her tail, and platefall a few years later destroying Sector 7...

In OG, ultimately Sera never stops. She wants answers. She wants to know how to stop Shinra, and she takes her nights after Shayan’s in bed searching - For Zack, for answers, for a means to stop Shinra... She needs to know and nothing comes of it, resulting in her death in Edge during Deepgrounds’ raid several years later.

In Remake, Sera may have developed issues with paranoia on regaining Zack, but if you look close, you can see where the losses she’s experienced - still including Zack - have shaped her and her dream, and where new lines are made. She’s learned, the hard way, the world is cruel and some people don’t and will never care... But it’s only made her want to see it change for the next generation all the more.

And by Shiva, she will do it.