Didn’t feel abrupt to me! Just felt like one of those endings that’s really a beginning, as a good interlude should :)

I’m still iffy on him becoming Emperor in the first place, though. An Emperor rules an empire, and an empire is generally defined as a collection of multiple distinct territories. He never claims Riverfarm itself – and really shouldn’t be able to – and Durene considers herself to be living in Riverfarm, so her cottage shouldn’t technically be a distinct territory in its own right. Realistically, he should have gotten something more generic like [Monarch] or such, and then upgraded to Emperor later on.

Just gonna go out on a limb and guess you’ve never met a blind person ever huh? A blind person who grows up hearing of other kids playing sport, painting etc can be envious of those experiences. What you’ve said here is just extremely ignorant…

Do you think blind people aren’t people or something? like seriously what the hell.

You say what emperor nortan the 1st did was icky, lol. Let me introduce you to any organised religion.

He has his ability “plot armor” that works perfectly to alter reality, protecting the user and providing inexplicable or illogical benefits.

Before reading E chapters, someone told me that they have hard time reading it as they’re not interested with the chapter. I have that with Ryoka’s chapters at Vol 1 and some in Vol 2 but I get past that. But they’d not get past it like me. I was still optimistic and giving the E chapters the benefit of the doubt because I really don’t want to skim it like I did once with Ryoka’s chapter in Vol. 2. I did it once on a chapter and it was not a pleasant experience. As a detailed-focus reader, I really hate skimming. But it’s either that or waste 8 hours of waking time cause Ryoka’s past chapters really was sleep inducing phenomenon, it’s not boring objectively (it is boring for me) but she’s hard to like and so does her chapters. I figured maybe that was the same case with the E chapters.

Technically the fact that Larken was blind and he’s kind of delulu in his head thinking he is an emperor was the drawback. It’s not about him being blind, it’s how he think unlike how a blind person should do. There was some technical difference that have not convinced me that a blind person should act like that. There were some outliers and there should be special cases of blind people perceptions but I was not convinced by your sell pitch, sorry. It would have been better if he use to see once but lost it, then I would not have problem with it but congenital blindness just make a person different, they grew with different perceptions, world view and micro views of the little things in life. For example, why would they wanted to catch a ball? I’m not saying this statement is wrong but you have to convince us why. Like he used to be in a ball-oriented sports family and he’s envious of that. Like with painting. What bases does a person who does not know colors except for dark have wants for painting? That’s not a strong drive and I’m not saying a blind person can’t want to paint. But the way you use it as a want was unconvincing. If he was in a painter family or a friend of him really likes to paint then that would be convincing. Because it’s not the act of painting or catching a ball that drives him, but the act to belong and to do what other people was enthusiastic about, to conform. You need to get to the bottom of it psychologically, blind people wants to see, to see the faces of their love ones, to know the colors of the sky, what was it like to see rain fall or or when you wake up to the sun shining at you face. The basest of things that constitute what seeing really is. Then the catching of ball or painting comes next, it’s about placement, unless those things are really important to him, and thus convincing us that it was.

With him being kind of delulu, was put offing. That’s a kind of confidence that either people commend or stay away of. I get that it’s all about confidence sometimes but I have beliefs that your freedom ends with the freedom of others. Imposing you are an emperor to other people like Emperor Norton I did was icky. Okay, you believe you’re an emperor but don’t impose it to us, don’t begrudged them of something they have the freedom to believe or not. I’m more worried for future implications with E chapters but so far it’s harmless so I’m chill with him being Emperor or something. I’m still convince that he might not be that well psychologically, just mild, like who doesn’t? We are quirky in our own way.

But his attitude or character feels like Ryoka, it’s giving the vibe and I’m not sure how to react to that.

The plot really balance the it though. So unless the future E chapters get tedious for suddenly becoming a filler or an unnecessary chapter, I can’t see why I can’t like this one.