#sophie spends this book battling and parroting amatonormativity. and while she'll learn.

[bookwyrminspiration]

re: your tags on a recent answer sayingabout reading stellarlune that stellarlune is only your second hated bc legacy is worse

i haven't read legacy in a hot minute so *chinhands* wanna tell me more?

i don't remember anything important from it except the whole Alvar thing (which, honestly, you're telling me the Neverseen had a method to completely wipe a guy's brain only to perfectly restore it with a certain trigger, and nobody talked about it again??) And I somewhat remember the trolls? great-aunt Luzia Vacker put a troll farm on her property for some reason i don't remember, then for some reason moved away from it and left it on the property out of her control? Wack

oh and i do remember being wildly annoyed by the ending, where sophie spends like twelve books up to this point vocally refuting the matchmaking system and not wanting to do it, but then she turns around and does it after all?? (and okay, i can admit that she probably did it bc she really loves fitz and like, if he'll only accept her if the matchmakers allowed it, then perhaps through the power of love it'll work out for her? but it doesn't, so she and fitz have to make hard decisions about their lives.) So yeah actually give me your matchmaking/legacy ending thoughts too!

I'd love to! However, you did just describe the plot of Flashback, not Legacy, so I'll try to cover both of them briefly

Flashback I'm mostly neutral on--I do enjoy the sophitz before Shannon started their forced crash (in Legacy, part of the reason I dislike it), and exploring Tam's potential with shadowflux is lovely since I love him. Few clarifications: Luzia made a secret alliance with the trolls to hide their hive, since it's their biggest vulnerability; she moved away because she needed more space. Apparently during that time, Luzia helped with experiments on them--but the hive left there was closed on their side, so Luzia wasn't part of the most recent batch; my guess is she thought it was inactive and abandoned, otherwise she wouldn't let the new Vackers live there

But yes, I was incredibly underwhelmed by its ending. Coming out of books where the cliffhanger is her entire family's been kidnapped, Alvar's lost his memories, her being ineligible for a pairing system I don't care about as the final reveal is like...ok. and? but, I do acknowledge this is entirely biased by my aromanticism and relationship anarchy. I simply don't give a shit. sophie, however, does. so I understand why from her pov that's a massive bombshell, and very stressful. i'm just not the audience for that reveal

unfortunately for me, that ending sets up a major part of the next book, which is why Legacy is my least favorite. I want to be very upfront and say my least favorite. this is my ranking based on my personal interests and enjoyment, it's absolutely fine if you (general) like Legacy. this is incredibly biased and opinionated

OKAY, so. I simply cannot get myself to care about Sophie's relationship woes, and they're not even written true to the characters! That thing I said about a forced crash? It's like as soon as they got together, Shannon decided the loss of hidden crush drama was too much, and she immediately sabotaged them to make up for it. This post gives a good example, adding a fake time crunch to make it seem more important and blaming Fitz. And the thing about Fitz being like "you wouldn't want to not find your parents, right?" when one of the first trust exercises they did together she told him directly she didn't want to because she thought she'd hate them. And they didn't brush past it! They talked about it a little! But of course now he's conveniently forgotten

If it was compelling, I could accept their demise. But it's not! It feels like drama for drama's sake, and it's just frustrating to read. With the seven books we spent building up to them, imploding everything about them in one book without any pay off is like...why. Just why. and it comprises SO MUCH of the story! Sophie's always thinking about it, prioritizing it, worrying about it, and I! am not here for that. Which is entirely a personal preference thing. i've been in a qpr for years, relationship anarchy is my normal, and it's just so...exhausting? reading her thoughts about how her life is going to be ruined and everyone's going to hate her. first of all, that's clearly an overreaction and I'm not believing this tension for a second. second, boo fucking hoo. you're atypical. join the club and stop moaning about how it sucks to be us. she's on a learning/acceptance curve, I know, but that doesn't make it fun to hear that kind of rhetoric--especially since I'm fairly certain Shannon wrote this without that in mind at all

I am aware I'm being mean to Sophie. I can logically understand all her beliefs and actions, and I know they're suited to her, her background, her values, and where she is in life right now. on a technical level, I get it. that doesn't mean emotionally I enjoy it, even if there's a reason to it all. it's simply a part of the story I, as an aromantic person, dislike. and that is my experience and opinion, I am in no way speaking for others.

so to summarize: I hate how the characters were handles and how sophie thinks of matchmaking in Legacy, and those things were a significant portion of the book, so I don't like it in general. personally. my very biased and emotionally driven opinion :)