I see that many have problems with the "Dylan twist". There are a few who mostly understood what's actually behind it but most people don't. Anyway, I will think about, how to change this storyline.
My thoughts were: Dylan's a horny naive high school kid, who likes his mother more than he actually should. He would love to see her in the same sexy dresses like earlier but she'd never listen to him. I read some suggestions which would supposedly be more realistic, like Dylan could be nice to his mom, and take her to dinner or similar. I mean seriously? You think taking her out and then he will ask her "Mom, can you please wear skimpy dresses from now on? Preferably braless, by showing much of your legs and cleavage. Like you did earlier". You think Sophia would say yes???
vcxDylan thinks that this could have something to do with a midlife crisis, that she doesn't feel desirable anymore. By "loosening her up" with wearing skimpy sexy dresses, he promises himself that this would make her happier but especially make it easier for him to approach her and ask her for more "educational help". He knows that only an extreme situation will change her mind, so he created one. But for him it was just the deal for her getting dressed more sexy. Aiden invented the 12 tasks to exploit the situation in his favor. But neither Dylan nor Aiden would have ever thought that Sophia would actually accept the deal. And the decision about that is also Sophia's! Dylan didn't even know about any dubious "12 tasks" at all! Plus he doesn't know Aiden as well as the readers do! He just heard rumors about him and approched him with his plan. And not Aiden asked Dylan to do something for him but Dylan offered him to get some valuable data with his hacking slills if Aiden plays along with his weird plan. But Aiden saw his chance here and wants to test his teacher how far she will go.
And many also see Aiden on the level of Ted Bundy! But Aiden's just a occasional bully with an influential uncle. I mean what did he ask Sophia to do yet? Getting dressed more sexy and bending down? I had teachers who did this voluntary!
And Dylan can defend himself and has many friends as well as Zac. He's not the victim type, and doesn't fit in his "predator prey system"! Sophia and Alyssa mentioned this a couple of times, which makes them not understand why this is even happening to their boys.
But maybe this all is much to complicated, and people tend to see Dylan immediately on the villain side. So, I will think about how to change it. Maybe also do a poll about it.
Once more unto the breach go I.
It's not that this situation is "complicated", it's that it is convoluted and filled with deeply flawed logic from Dylan but is also contradicted by other actions and moments with Dylan.
Granted a lot of this is down to player choice, but Dylan can be seen as a shy, insecure, naive teenager with a confused attraction to his own mother and who doesn't like other guys talking or thinking about his mother in a sexual way. He's therefore protective of her, either out of the expected unconditional love he has for his mother, or because of his growing sexual desires for her, or both. Therefore, putting his mother in a position where she could be exploited in order to exert emotional blackmail on her seems like it goes against everything we know about his character.
Even without the blackmail, we've seen that Sophia has grown comfortable doing things around him such as the bikini photoshoot, letting him masturbate to her body, seeing her in her underwear, etc, and all this can be done even without other external factors changing her like Ellie, Patricia, Sam, etc. So it would seem that he was doing just fine on his own since all Sophia needs is a few Filthy points to accept his advances more and more, and mostly all of this has been happening without the blackmail being too extreme and even by rejecting the blackmail. So why, therefore, would this blackmail be necessary if his progress with her is advancing fine without it?
Dylan doesn't necessarily have to take her on "dates" to "loosen" her up as she's been loosening up just fine without having to do that. As
Lord_Xanatos pointed out, the bikini photoshoot is a prime example of how Dylan can shower Sophia with praises and compliments in a way that felt very natural and respectful towards her that can open her mind to being more sexual. Things like that are working to "loosen" her up, but Dylan could also employ emotional guilt tripping which is a lot less underhanded than emotional blackmail by an external force. It's about saying something like,
"I hope you don't take offense, but you just don't seem as happy as you used to be. I miss that. I miss the Mom you used to be and it makes me upset to see you like this." It's about tugging on her heartstrings by making her think that her prudish behaviour is upsetting and hurting her family in much the same way that someone whose behaviour has gone a bit of the rails is appealed to to "bring back the old you" because their behaviour is upsetting and hurting their family. It's still manipulative, but it can be seen more as coming from a good place than staging a fake blackmail.
I appreciate that Dylan did not know what Aiden would do, but Dylan did essentially give free reign to someone who, even if he didn't know everything about how much of a rotten apple he is, is still someone that I'm sure Zac warned him could not be trusted. This is what gets to the convoulted part of all of this, because if Dylan believes his mother won't respond well to
him requesting her to dress more scantily, what makes him think that a repugnant wannabe thug like Aiden will convince her to? There's a far greater chance of her refusing than accepting knowing the type of person his mother is, and whilst this does come down to player choice and Sophia finds a way to justify going this far for her son, Dylan is playing a very dangerous game. If she refuses, then there's every chance Aiden would spill the beans to her about his plan and any chance of progress with her would be gone because she would be so angry and upset that her son would think to put her through that. If she accepts, then not only does Dylan have no way of knowing what he'll do, but Aiden now also has Dylan by the balls because Aiden has leverage over him by threatening to tell Sophia it was all his idea and again ruining his progress and his intended goal.
The risks far outweigh the reward, especially when Dylan has people much closer to him who could help. He could speak to his Aunt Patricia about Sophia and about his concerns about her, and ask if she can help to "loosen" her up. He could even ask Amber, who's an old friend of hers, to help him as well, so there are far better and safer options than Aiden. This, combined with the progress he was already making independent of the blackmail, would surely have been more than enough to progress their relationship and whilst there might still be some manipulation there, it certainly would not nearly be as deviant, underhanded, and out of character as the fake blackmail is.
