Defending our MC from baseless accustaions (stupid title ik but I'm lazy)
Ik a lota Redditiors percive her as one but Sophie is not a "pick-me".
A Pick Me Girl, also known as "Pick Me", is a term used on the Internet to describe a woman who seeks male approval by regularly deprecating other women in order to increase their perceived value in the dating or social scene. This belittling can be directed either to a specific woman or to women as a group. Their behavior generally suggests that they perceive themselves to be, and wish to be, different and/or better than other women.
-Wikipedia
The main reason people call Sophie a "pick-me" is her dislike of feminine things. As one person on Reddit says "she tries way too hard to be a cool tomboy".
And let me tell you guys, that does not make her a pick-me.
It has been a frankly disturbing internet fashion yesterday, to brand any female character with flaws, (making her mildly unlikable) who dislikes femininity as a pick me. The "Not Like Other Girls" trope can be problematic and misogynistic, and KoTLC defenitly has a misogyny problem, but that does not make Sophie a "pick-me".
Let's go back to the defenition. A "pick-me" dislikes femininity to get men's attention. And this is def not what Sophie "no boy will ever like me" Foster tries to do.
I think the main reason people say Sophie's dislike of gowns is "pick-me" behavior is bcuz of how misogynisticly KoTLC is written. Yes, it is implied in Neverseen that the real reason Soph dislikes feminine ways of dressing is bcuz she has been conditioned to view gowns as "proof of our gender's inferior status". (Della and Soph convo before the Black Swan meeting). Sophie probablydoesn't want to be connected to anything lesser, anything weaker - which she, and most other KoTLC characters, view femininity as (*cough cough* additudes to Oralie).
And also... a huge part of her dislike towards gowns has to do with how uncomfortable they are and how shez a clutz? Like gurl... same.
Shez not uncomfortable with femininity as a whole, she likes makeup and flared tunics. It's just gowns she despises.
So she really doesn't do it for male attention.
There is a worrying trend in the internet right now, to accuse every character who isn't traditionally feminine of being a "pick-me". Sophie's not even that big of an example of the "not like other girls" trope, with her obsessing over boys and liking makeup and being insecure about her appearance and everything. Shez just a normalish teen to me.