(no subject)
yeah yeah I know I've been needing to essay. let's keep this as short as possible.
So. A thing you need to know about Sera to really get this essay is that her early experiences are all sort of tied together with control, her fantasies, and isolation. In her whole... two years of being a child, she explores her environment and burgeoning sexuality in a variety of ways. A lot of them focused around her then-obsession with Dr. Serph Sheffield, who certainly manipulated the heck out of her through her crush on him regardless of whether or not he actually touched her.
In camp right now, Sera feels less in control than she has since she became a demon in canon. Embryon is being besieged, basically - something that takes Embryon members away from the rest of the tribe is essentially an attack on their solidarity and emotional stability, especially since none of them left camp willingly, and there's no way they ICly would! Angel is gone now, and Sera was never able to reach a place in her own mind where she could accept how things stood between her and her mother before she left. Bat's not a lot of trouble just now, but he's still around. Embryon can't really do anything about any of it. No one is happy. She just had to play a death game in which she sacrificed people who didn't deserve it to help keep her people from dying, and her ultimate willingness to kill almost everyone else there except maybe Yuta to keep Cielo safe wasn't even enough to protect him. Sera the killer isn't who she wants to be, anyway! She likes people. She likes the idea of people. She wants to save the world! Basically life sucks and she can't control it, and she feels like she can't help anyone in a concrete way at the moment. This is understandable, you would think, but to Sera it's terrible, because the idea of her not being able to control her own feelings is tied in with some horrible stuff in her life.
When Sera was first tying her make-believe games and sexual fantasies together, one of the most compelling images (and one of the creepiest dungeons in the first game) she came up with was that of a princess trapped in a castle. It's an easy leap to make, because she was a special person who was trapped, even if it was in a glass jar hooked up to God rather than a tower. She was going to be rescued by two brave princes who were fighting over her! Super exciting! Then the real-life counterpart of her "Good Prince," Dr. Sheffield, murdered her "Evil Prince" horrifically before her eyes and turned out to be a megalomaniacal psychopathic fuckhead. There's a lot more of her life experience both before and after the Embryon became a force in her life here, but I'm not going to go into that, except for where Sera has really bad associations with being rescued at this point. Her being rescued involves other people dying for her! Painfully! A lot! Her feeling feelings is the cause of God deciding the world sucks and trying to disintegrate it! The only role Sera can accept herself in is trying to be strong for other people. It's the only one that doesn't hurt. She can be protected and stuff, but as part of Embryon, not as an individual, because that's just... wrong.
She still has that being saved kink, though, even if she's ashamed of it. She'd love it if Serph or Heat tried to sweep her off her feet. But they're both too scared of hurting her in their different ways to really live in that old romantic vision, and she'd probably resist it if it happened, because aaaaaaah.
I kind of lost track of where else I might've been going with this, but YUP. THAT'S THAT.
So. A thing you need to know about Sera to really get this essay is that her early experiences are all sort of tied together with control, her fantasies, and isolation. In her whole... two years of being a child, she explores her environment and burgeoning sexuality in a variety of ways. A lot of them focused around her then-obsession with Dr. Serph Sheffield, who certainly manipulated the heck out of her through her crush on him regardless of whether or not he actually touched her.
In camp right now, Sera feels less in control than she has since she became a demon in canon. Embryon is being besieged, basically - something that takes Embryon members away from the rest of the tribe is essentially an attack on their solidarity and emotional stability, especially since none of them left camp willingly, and there's no way they ICly would! Angel is gone now, and Sera was never able to reach a place in her own mind where she could accept how things stood between her and her mother before she left. Bat's not a lot of trouble just now, but he's still around. Embryon can't really do anything about any of it. No one is happy. She just had to play a death game in which she sacrificed people who didn't deserve it to help keep her people from dying, and her ultimate willingness to kill almost everyone else there except maybe Yuta to keep Cielo safe wasn't even enough to protect him. Sera the killer isn't who she wants to be, anyway! She likes people. She likes the idea of people. She wants to save the world! Basically life sucks and she can't control it, and she feels like she can't help anyone in a concrete way at the moment. This is understandable, you would think, but to Sera it's terrible, because the idea of her not being able to control her own feelings is tied in with some horrible stuff in her life.
When Sera was first tying her make-believe games and sexual fantasies together, one of the most compelling images (and one of the creepiest dungeons in the first game) she came up with was that of a princess trapped in a castle. It's an easy leap to make, because she was a special person who was trapped, even if it was in a glass jar hooked up to God rather than a tower. She was going to be rescued by two brave princes who were fighting over her! Super exciting! Then the real-life counterpart of her "Good Prince," Dr. Sheffield, murdered her "Evil Prince" horrifically before her eyes and turned out to be a megalomaniacal psychopathic fuckhead. There's a lot more of her life experience both before and after the Embryon became a force in her life here, but I'm not going to go into that, except for where Sera has really bad associations with being rescued at this point. Her being rescued involves other people dying for her! Painfully! A lot! Her feeling feelings is the cause of God deciding the world sucks and trying to disintegrate it! The only role Sera can accept herself in is trying to be strong for other people. It's the only one that doesn't hurt. She can be protected and stuff, but as part of Embryon, not as an individual, because that's just... wrong.
She still has that being saved kink, though, even if she's ashamed of it. She'd love it if Serph or Heat tried to sweep her off her feet. But they're both too scared of hurting her in their different ways to really live in that old romantic vision, and she'd probably resist it if it happened, because aaaaaaah.
I kind of lost track of where else I might've been going with this, but YUP. THAT'S THAT.