>>58625134For Sapphire to work, she'd need more moments where her need to always seem strong and optimistic comes off as insensitive to the other characters. Perhaps her trying to shrug off Mt. Chimney upsets Flannery or her lack of shock over Stone's assault creeps out Gabby. Those incidents would lead to Sapphire learning openly showing "bad" feelings like sadness and fear isn't inherently wrong or weak. That she's shutting herself off from proper empathy.
Ironically, you don't even need to fundamentally change the story because this extends naturally to the enviromental crisis and Ruby. She's now learnt that it's ok to be vulnerable (to an extent, her walls aren't meant to collapse until Mirage Island) with her emotions and self-reflect every once in a while. So her apologizing to Ruby and getting upset all have more weight if they're as a result of lessons learnt.
Of course, Sapphire's achilles heel is that she's deeply emotional, so when she shows "negative" emotions, she goes all out just as much as when she's her usual self, so that's what leads to her cutting ties completely when Ruby refuses to help. Again, Sapphire's characterisation right up until the airlock is good, it just lacks a little bit of context. We just have to assume Sapphire learnt these things on the way.
Somebody in the May general pointed this out but it's a missed opportunity for Seviper's back scar to not have been permanent to parallel Ruby.