I think why I've figured out why I really dislike the current storyline.
Having Nancy lose to various dominatrices worked (most of the time) because Nancy could always bounce back and try again.
The "To ____ a Thief" storyline, though, had Trixie lose all of her protections except *maybe* that blackmail flashdrive, and even if she somehow escapes that won't make all her enemies forget who she is. So even in the best case scenario, the Black Fox persona is dead.
So Trixie will from now be a broken husk of her former self, and the author is dragging this out over months and months.
And the same thing is happening with Family Value, where Evelyn is steadily breaking her nephew and has started breaking her long-term partner-in-crime.
So yeah, in however many months when that storyline is over, most of the characters will be either broken husks or at minimum made to be more in line with what Evelyn wants, with Evelyn as the mostly-undisputed decider.
All of this make every character involved dreadfully boring, IMO. Because most will only be able to dance to Evelyn's tunes outside of maybe a token attempt at resisting, and without anything to challenge her or to be afraid of, Evelyn loses anything that could make her interesting.
Interesting comment, UnoriginalPoster.
Indeed, in every drama there must be a
protagonist and his
nemesis, to generate the conflict that carry on the plot. But here there's a high risk to remain without any real nemesis, with the plot that could slip into a dead end.
I hope SG is aware of this risk, and will not allow to let the
Bitch-tandem act freely without any opposition.
For many years author managed to balance between Evelyn omnipotency and resistance against it.
It's exactly what I wrote above: no antagonists = no drama.
Now that the character of the Black Fox is burned (or at least is burned as we knew her before), Sleepy has to find a new element to counter the absolute omnipotence of Evelyn.
Beside, we have to considere that in the majority of bondage comics the villain (the dominator, the creep or the maniac) wins almost each times. The "unhappy ending" is canonic in this kind of stories.
But this is not an
ordinary bondage comic, it's a micro-universe with its own internal rules and with multiple plots in constant evolution - and maybe that's why we find it so fascinating.
So, sometime a defeat of the villain (also just momentary, as in
Nancy's day off) could be healthy for the saga.
When a certain fleur of innocence disappeared from the story, and everything turned into the unpunished cruelty of two bitches who went away from the lack of at least some control.
And all the other characters are increasingly shown to be weak-willed, incapable of anything, a background for the tricks of the "Bitch Tandem". [...]
Has reading become much more boring? Is it more monotonous?
Same answer as above. SG has to face the serious risk that, without some "enemy" which ruin the plans of the
Bitch-tandem, the saga will just became a series of episodes showing unchallenged and unpunished domination. Not "boring", but
monotonous - as you wrote.
Trixie was a good antagonist of the
BT, until recently...but now, her role as nemesis seems irreversibly lost.
Willing to bet Sleepygimp is going to drag this "To break a Thief" storyline til next year at the earliest.
I'm not going to lie, I don't like writers or artists to drag the story where there no point to end.
Ciao, Lastsparta.
In general I agree with you, however there are other implications we have to consider.
Apart the self-contained episodes (the "standalones", such as
Roofie Colada or
White Phantom), Sleepy cannot close definitively the storylines he has opened, otherwise his readers would have no reason to follow the next parts of the saga. He know he must keep a sort of constant "anxiety" towards what is yet to come. So, he carry on very slowly the development of the main plots (Country Girl, Trixie, Freddie, Carmilla...) and adds continually new details and characters when it seems that a plot is nearly to reach its end.
This strategy might be annoying for us, maybe...but it's correct from the point of view of editorial management.