Overly Complicated plot is when you just stack sub plot a bit too much and are all story lines to some degree instead of an incident. It doesn't mean you can't follow it or it doesn't make since it just means the main plot is losing focus.
"Overly complicated" can mean multiple things, and clearly I misunderstood what you meant. "It doesn't mean you can't follow it" — it actually does mean that, or I wouldn't have incorrectly interpreted your post. But it can also mean what you say, and so I partially agree.
Firstly, I don't have any problem with the plot of the dad and his "business" and its ties to a larger crime organization. I don't find that the addition of being evicted and Richard's involvement with powerful people he fears takes away from the primary story and themes at all. It is directly involved in severely damaging the lives of Diane and the MC.
It serves as a catalyst to increase intimacy more quickly between the MC and his mom, because by being forced to move away into much less comfortable circumstances, to me the situations for intimacy have the potential to be more believable. Sharing a bed because there literally isn't another bedroom creates more intimacy. Having no real privacy creates a greater likelihood of seeing each other in "less than modest" situations. The list of extreme and ridiculous porn tropes — "mom's sunbathing again" or "Mom, could you teach me some yoga?" — gets reduced a bit. They could still happen, but so far the mother-son moments have made more sense to me.
Now, I'm not saying that "mom's fighting with Richard and is having an emotional time of it" and "Liane's fighting with her mom and having a hard time of it"
couldn't be sufficient for a solid story, but I don't find the Richard plot and his criminal ties an issue at all.
The vigilante woman
was strange, and I'd rather not have yet another external force tugging at things. I agree that the potential extra of her involvement is unnecessary and a problem. The MC could have just as easily been outside Liane's door at a time nobody was around to hear him. Liane's chair was made of wood, so breakable; a broken chair doesn't keep a captive restrained very well. The MC then could've carried Liane out without bothering to unbind her. It's not like the hospital wouldn't have enough various implement lying around that something could've been found to free her once there.
I also agree about the boss fling, which felt completely out of nowhere. Having a job at the gym
could've been more important in the main plot somehow. Perhaps, in searching for Diane, Richard might have eventually tracked the MC to the gym and then tried to force details about them out of Carmilla. And even if she's incredibly horny and put on a show for the MC, it feels off to have him hook up with her when clearly his heart is with his mom. This also feels like an unnecessary complication that should have been omitted. I imagine there was some Patreon poll or something and so the patrons won out, but I still think it should have been avoided.
