What Do You think Led to the Dark Storyline Turns?

Sleepy went on a LONG hiatus (8 months?) over feeling that his story had gotten too dark. He realized that he was starting to hate his own main characters (Evie & Vi) and had to scale it back.

But I'm curious… since he pretty much openly courted this. I remember readers (including me) on SS suggesting that things were awfully dark and critiquing it a tad, and he'd constantly say he was exploring things like that. Like it interested him.

But there was some REALLY dark stuff- Country Girl being abducted and penetrated against her will for MONTHS, while dreaming about her happy life of freedom before that? Various women being abducted and made their slaves? A backstory featuring the eldest Le Fay torturing people and murdering them, including some of Nancy's relatives? That all led to the very personal story of Evie torturing Trixie.

Like, obviously a lot of it was played for laughs or just plain kink. You can't have Femdom with out the "Dom" and non-con was a Huuuuuuuuuuuuuge component of Sleepy's work. But Sleepy kinda deliberately dove into darker and darker stuff, even against some critiques.

So I wonder if it was just the thing artists do where they keep "chasing the dragon" until they take issue with their own work? I know artists who loved HUGE TITS and so every new drawing seemed to have the characters inflate to be bustier and bustier… they'd love it and the fans would drool over it, fans who didn't like it would be ignored… then one day the artist would go "UGH I made all the tits too huge!" and they suddenly have to scale it back.

Is it just a version of that? Always chasing "darker" (since Nancy being abducted and gang-raped by a group of women is technically DARK even if it's played for laughs and kink, like "oh what will that doofus get into next?") until your characters turn into absolute monsters and it's too far to slink back?

It seems like Sleepy's going to wrap up the Nancy story he's been working on for god knows how long (a decade?) and restarting with something else. He's even taken the "Gimp" out of his name. So possibly bondage, non-con and abductions won't play as big a part in the fantasy comic he's said he's making.