The first teaser of the next update has been released by L&P in a post entitled "Here we go again" and, in my opinion, never has the title been more appropriate.
In fact "here we go again" with Sophia once again seeming to have totally misdressed, dressing too sexy to go on her meeting with Aiden to learn the terms of the next task to be performed. But above all "here we go again" with all those posts that fill the pages of this thread, fearing for our heroine at least the repetition of the worst scenarios that so far we have potentially encountered during the game experience: from the humiliation of being forced to undress in front of strangers (already seen in Day 15 with Janitor Clark) to group groping (already seen in Day 12 with the thugs of the subway station).
But how is it possible that out of all the regulars in this thread only I had this dejavu sensation? All this foreboding of catastrophic developments for Sophia's fate filled the pages of this thread already a few months ago.
It was in fact 30 August 2021 and L&P had just published, as the seventh teaser for update 0.150, this post:
"At the biker bar"
This image (logically) didn't show much of anything (other than Sophia and Patricia arriving at the venue where Sam and his band would be performing), but combined with the fact that Sophia would be wearing (by choice of the L&P Patrons) the infamous boob pocket dress for the occasion,
was enough to provoke a long series of posts on this thread in which (due to the outfit showing off her goodies) Sophia and her sister were speculated to have some very unpleasant experiences with the bikers and truckers present.
Then, when the update was made available on this thread and we all got to play that event, the result of all that concern for Sophia's fate was this:
Today, as then, everyone seems to be very concerned about the L&P teaser due to the fact that it shows the (potentially very dangerous) concomitant presence of our heroine (dressed in an "unseemly" way to meet the neighbourhood bully who is tormenting her) and a group of kids and drifters (who seem to be eagerly waiting for her).
But this is a teaser and (just as a good aperitif should stimulate the appetite while waiting for dinner time) its task should be to tickle our imagination while waiting for the next update and make us formulate hypotheses and conjectures about what we will see in a short while.
Unfortunately, however, this is where our problem arises: the chef takes too long to prepare his delicacies and we, in the spasmodic wait to eat something, do nothing but tell ourselves if and how much we liked the previous course or what we would like to eat in the next one. But if, between courses, instead of cleaning our palate with a few sips of fresh water, we overdo it with the deceptive sparkling wine provided by the house as an aperitif, we risk getting drunk (which is even easier when someone hasn't eaten for a long time) and therefore no longer being able to appreciate the chef's cuisine.
It's fun to fantasize and hypothesize scenarios on the basis of what L&P offers us as teasers, but we must remember that the chosen images are presented not only with the logical intent of spoiling as little as possible the next update, but sometimes also with the clear intention of making us imagine developments (negative or positive as they may be) that, when the game will be updated, we will discover to be totally unfounded. So we shouldn't go overboard with speculation, otherwise we risk, on the basis of images taken out of the narrative context, giving rise to wild theories or, worse still, worrying for no reason as we did with the event of Sam's show at the bikers' bar.
So, based on what we've seen in this event, I think it's safe to expect a similar development for this meeting with Aiden too, at least for one big reason: Aiden doesn't want to give up so soon on the toy he's been enjoying so much lately.
Aiden may be pissed off about losing the bet with Andre (and possibly, if Sophia intervened in Jennifer's defense, he might be too for not being able to enjoy the object of winning said bet), but I don't think he wants to punish Sophia for that reason in a way as brutal as any form of group violence could be. Aiden doesn't want this opportunity to "improve" his reputation as a bad boy (which has been coming to him for a few days now in the form of his teacher/mother of one of his victims) to fade so quickly, and such a rapid escalation of events (with Sophia falling prey to his gang of thugs) would be counterproductive to what I think is the main purpose of his tasks for Sophia: to gain the respect of his peers (be they his classmates or his gang members) through the overpowering of an authority figure like his new teacher. Then, as far as I can tell from Sophia's conversation with the policeman who is informed about Aiden's criminal record (Day 16), the police are just waiting for him to be reported for something more serious than the crimes he has committed so far (beating and blackmailing some loser kid) in order to prepare an investigation that will bring him before a court other than the juvenile courts he has attended so far (and where the good and influential uncle lawyer has been able to dominate). Aiden is well aware of his condition and will therefore have every interest in ensuring that the level of the crimes he’s being investigated for is not raised by an allegation of gang rape.
Aiden is the leader of his gang because (despite being a despicable street rat) he's not stupid, or at least he's the smartest (and above all the most protected and wealthy) of the bullying kids he usually surrounds himself with. Therefore, as a leader, I think he will be able to protect his interests from the eventual lusts of his wingmen and will end up driving away all those who are not involved in this affair (as he already did in the previous meeting in the same place on Day 16) in order to continue discussing his business with Sophia.
Also, from the point of view of the future story unfolding, I think that any particularly traumatizing scenario for Sophia is not in line with the idea of the 12 tasks to be passed (if after the fourth task Sophia is so strongly harassed what would the remaining 8 tasks have in store for her?) and with the original purpose for which these tasks were introduced in the story (see this old
post of mine about it).
It remains to be explained why Sophia chose to wear such a sexy outfit to go meet that rat Aiden in the open-air dump he uses as his gang's headquarters.
I have my own theory about that...
