That's becaues L&P is a male trying to write from the perspective of a female, and not understanding fully what that means. So L&P keeps inserting Dylan into the story more and more as he can relate far better to Dylan than Sophia and her struggles. I'm going to sound like a broken record here, but it's why L&P needs a small group of people to sound board off of so that he can gain different perspectives. Dylan just feels like an insert character and the "hero" of the story, Sophia is just the lens through which we watch the story.
L&P has several female characters in AWAM with clearly self-motivated actions that drive the story. Patricia, for example, is well aware of how the world works and certainly has no problems in achieving her goals. Also Amber and Ellie have their own goals. No, it is Sophia who is really frighteningly passive for an MC. That's why I think Dylan should clearly get more content.
So many of the different story threads tie directly to Dylan, because Dylan is the more relatable character to L&P. Bennet's blackmail. Aiden's blackmail. The Sam/Amber/Dylan MILF-off thing. Christine/Marie/Emma all being love interests to Dylan; even though Emma was telegraphed as a lesbian route interest for Sophia, Marie and, specifically, Claire as swinger type route, and Christine seemed way more tied to Ellie's story than to Dylan. Dylan is active in multiple sports and is learning martial arts to defend himself, we've spent multiple scenes following those plot lines. Two scenes have been dedicated to Dylan getting a haircut.
Again, Dylan is Sophia's son and it is only logical that he plays an important role in her life, just as Ellie does. The fact that Liam has so little space is technically well explained in the story and is probably also due to the fact that his character is not very popular. Don't forget that Dylan is in the on top of the characters beside Sophia, even though he is far behind others in terms of progress.
Also, please do not forget that Ellie also got a lot of focus. She has the friend group from the dancing course, the connection with Emma (including the shopping event) and a series of events with Julia, which have brought the lesbian story forward considerably. In addition, she is also a part of her story with Dylan. It's like I said. In a game called "A wife and mother", so the children have a certain importance.
It's confounding since there are other family members whos lives should also be affecting Sophia and her story. What has happened in Ellie's life that has affected the story? Kissed a girl at the pool, and asked her mother some pretty benal, at least so far, things about sex. And we've spent one scene at the dance studio, one in the dressing room, and one short scene with Ellie smoking a cigarette with Christine, that Dylan takes a part in unless sent away to the boarding school. What about Patricia? Encouraged Sophia to go out to a club and to a galla event at a museum, and introduced Sophia to Claire. Patricia has done little else in the story besides introduce Sophia to someone else. You know what most of these scenes have in common? They all came very early in the story. The longer the story has gone on, the more focus has shifted in Dylans favor, when he was already getting as much time as the rest of the family.
Ellie has a lot of her own content and there was even an event for Liam point of view. Of the family, Dylan is the furthest behind when it comes to having progress with Sophia. In general, however, I think it makes no sense to expect Sophia to be equally engaged with all characters in the family or even in the game. Rather, Dylan is a good second main charkter for the story, since he belongs to a different generation as well as to the opposite sex than Sophia. That alone can be reason enough to give him more space, not to mention that he is the most popular character next to Sophia.
I absolutely cheered when Liam got in trouble at the casino, because finally someone else was having an effect on the family and it was a fire that wasn't directly tied to Dylan that Sophia had to put out. It was supposed to make Liam out like a bad guy, and I turned around and created a goodwife savefile solely because of this event.
From my point of view, all the gangster stories in AWAM are somehow implausible. The Casio stroy with its subsequent visit to the prison is no exception. In my opinion AWAM would have been better off without Aiden and co. and more than that, i don't count any of this characters to be Dylan content.
Looking at how the story around LIam was structured, I think his strong plots would have been the one in his company (there were some really good looking female colleagues), the competitive relationship with Carl in the square between Liam/Sophia/Carl/Patricia and the event with the wedding preparations (swinger planed?). The fact that Liam is not very popular with the players is probably the reason he do not get much attention at the moment, but L&P put a lot of time creating content with him.
My problem with Dylan isn't that it's Dylan, it's that he isn't Sophia. I enjoyed the early parts of this story, specifically because Sophia seemed like a well written character. Most of the early filthy options weren't even filthy, but iwere pretty innocous things like giving a phone number to a galla coordinator or enduring a hug that would make most people uncomfortable. Same goes with most of the lesbian temptations; rubbing sunscreen on a daughter's back, complimenting the looks of another woman, have a bathtowel lowered during a massage. It planted all these seeds for what could become of Sophia, and now for the last twoish year it feels like to story has drifted further away from all these early plot points so that Dylan can take up more focus.
Strange how much one's own preference influences one's judgment. I think that Dylan has currently come off worst. Ellie made much better progress. And considering charakter outside the family, the events with Alyssa or Nathalie in the lesbian path and the Sam event in the hetero path were much further than anything Dylan had so far. Even the sex education children had more action from Sophia than him. If there is anyone who needs more content, it is Dylan.
