#more characters should yell at people who've hurt and used them/others actually

[bookwyrminspiration]

I think My Best Habit by the Maine would fit Sophie if she had an arc where she said “fuck this” and left the Black Swan to have actual autonomy over her life

Okay first of all you're so right. And second of all upon looking up this song and seeing the cover I just went "hehe ass." Moving on

It think the line "Good thing I don't exist for you at all anymore" really encompasses the whole aesthetic and vibe of that kind of arc. Sophie's existence started for someone else. She started because a group of people saw a problem and wanted to fix and so they created someone to help them do that, to have a role she never asked for. Even if it's just "to be something new," that's a condition of her existence she got no say in. Her upbringing was curated, where she was placed and who her parents were. An arc where she breaks away from that brings her autonomy fully into her control, where she exists for herself only, that's what that line represents. And it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks or if they're disappointed or happy for her, because her existence is for her, not anyone else.

That continues with "My feet are mine to follow / You don't get to decide." Her path is hers to decide, she gets to follow what she believes and do what she thinks is right without someone else guiding her or trying to tell her what's right and wrong. We saw some of that in her burning down the storehouse, because that was very much something everyone else would've decided against and they made that vocal when she got back. But she doesn't exist for them, and they recruited her to their side, they didn't recruit a tool to be used as they wished. They recruited and made a person. She gets to make her own decisions and reap her own consequences. She gets to make her own mistakes and have her own regrets, none of her controlled by someone else. That's a big shift from the young girl who kept looking for notes telling her what to do next, and i think it's a great one.

There's also "Burned our teenage years down to the ground," which I think is especially fitting. Sophie's teenage years have been filled with fighting, with listening. If we take the interpretation to the extreme, it's been filled with her being a pawn in someone else's conflict. She didn't ask for any of this, yet she was made to be the center of it. Her stepping away from that is getting rid of her teenage years, of being young, and stepping into being in control of herself, following her own feet, her own desires and beliefs. It also ties in nicely with the storehouse, which I've already mentioned. She burned it to the ground and in doing so, burned down the relationships between her and everyone else. That's not to say that they're all destroyed beyond repair, but they are all different, because she's revealed something about herself no one else expected. Those ties were a tie to her teenage years, so by burning down the storehouse she's burned down those specific ties to the young girl she used to be. She still has ties, but they're changed, and I think that could be utilized well in entering the "fuck this" arc.

All this to say that I agree entirely and there are so many more lines that I could use to relate to that kind of arc for her, both in the glimpses we've seen in canon and more extremes she hasn't gotten to. Her autonomy and relationship to everything happening is so important to the story, so it'd be absolutely enthralling to watch something like this play out !! thank you for the song recommendation!!