#I've rarely had my trust in an author completely shattered all at once

[kikizoshi]

Funfact: whenever I see you complain about BSD having too many plot holes I'm incredibly amused, because I get reminded of a series I followed for about 8 years by now and has only revealed the answer to one of its core mysteries after 500+ weekly chapters. I see that we still have 4 more years before we can call anything in BSD a plot hole.

Ah, yeah, I can see that. And I do like stories that give you plenty of room/time for analysis. For me, whether or not I deem something a likely plot hole at all comes down to how much trust I have in the author.

For example, there are so many unexplained things about Bloodborne, and I love going through all the lore, the various takes, everything everyone's managed to compile—and when something doesn't quite seem to add up, I think that there must be something we missed. Because I have faith in the creators of Bloodborne, and I know they wouldn't put in something without there being a meaning behind it. I've a similar feeling for whenever a character in Arcane acts differently than I would have expected—that I must be missing something, because Arcane is so well-written that character inconsistencies are extremely unlikely. But it's because of my trust in the writers of these works that I can engage with them in that way. I have to believe that there's something there, a deeper meaning behind the contradiction I've unearthed, otherwise any effort on my end is meaningless.

And, with BSD... It's hard for me to explain, but it's just not well-written a fair amount of the time. It has parts that really shine, and then it has... space time sword. And, yes, it's possible that some of the plot holes will come back and be filled later (hopefully not with a retcon), but plenty of them are just lost, floating in the sands of time, never to be seen again. And that's only regarding plot holes—there are plenty of perfectly understandable things that don't make a lick of sense either.

I feel like, with BSD, more characters and new plots are valued over satisfyingly concluding old ones, and the whole story suffers heavily for it. That may be why his shorter, more self-contained stories are so much better, actually.

So, at this point, I have very little trust in Asagiri as a writer, to write a story in a consistent and well-thought-out way, which is why I'm so aggravated with it. Because I've seen/read stories of his that were actually good, but in his long-form, overarching shounen-type plot, he just seems to flounder ever more with each passing year.

But, yeah, TLDR: I do know plenty of stories take their time, but whether I consider inconsistencies plot holes or clues depends mainly on how much trust I have in the author's writing abilities.