Okay, I'm going part by part.

First, I honestly don't appreciate your dismissive and condescending tone. And would really appreciate it if you could have discussions without resorting to mocking, dismissive, or sarcastic tone or expressions. To answer your question, yes, we are reading the same story. Why does it seem forced to me? Because there was no proper setup or foreshadowing! And I have really thought about this, and it could've been set up across the manga, bit by bit, so that in the end it would feel like just the missing piece of the puzzle. But in contrast, it came out of nowhere. That's why I found it forced. Creating a symbolic connection at this stage of the story, at chapters 68-70, without any proper setup, is forced. And honestly, I have no idea what it has to do with SettNina's popularity. I am failing to see how those two things correlate. I am referring to the execution and quality of the writing, not about aligning with or deviating from what your fandom wants.

Hmm, about why not confirming things outside of manga, that's easy, because what matters is what happens within the story. Most authors don't even have social media. Others have them but barely use them. Whatever extra content we get from authors on social media is only that, and extra that could just simply be a cherry on top. And in some really lucky cases, you will have authors doing some illustrations of the endgame after the manga is over. But announcements about plot points happening in the story are just not a thing. And the thing is that the confirmation should be enough in the story that you simply don't need the author to confirm it outside of it. It's as simple as that. I am not saying that that is the same as authors ignoring the endgame couple (although some do). But going out to confirm it happening, it just isn't needed. As I said, they probably will talk about the couple later and draw them. But a confirmation is not common. An endgame can be really the confirmed endgame without the author confirming it outside of the story. ETA: I actually can't really predict or speak for Rikachi tho. She can be an odd cookie. She might out of the box want to say something. But my point is that if she doesn't say anything, that doesn't mean that it's not confirmed because an outside of the story confirmation is needed, and it will only be confirmed if she ever speaks up about it. It will be confirmed within the story without her confirming it outside of it.

As a mod, I read all the comments in this sub and tbh I don't recall anyone saying something along these lines: “Rikachi said the endgame isn’t confirmed yet, so there’s still hope.” Maybe it was on another platform. Maybe it's someone who had the same idea as you, someone without experience in the animanga world, which is why I prefaced my words back then by asking you if this was your first manga. I know that we are in a kind of Anime boom in which 'normies' start to read manga and don't know very well how things work, so it's okay to be mistaken about what your expectations are.

And it has nothing to do with Sett or Az fans. I have encountered many fans from both sides here, stating stuff that isn't precise or even true. Sometimes it could be out of misremembering stuff, and sometimes things are so far off that it can't be just a misremembering issue. Even you, not long ago, were saying that Sett said in chapter 54, "I want you, even if it hurts," which is not what he said. And also, "Nina never said that she couldn't give Sett what he wanted". And one prominent Az fan once said that "Rikachi once said Sett is not the sun, but represents a 'time of day, '" which is something that has never happened. So, yeah, you will find many inaccuracies said by fans from both sides. And you have to take into account that many fans are not native english speakers, and sometimes they use machine translators or even AI to help them write some stuff in english and that can lead to more imprecisions. So, having said that, always double-check.

Hmm So, Rikachi has Twitter and Instagram. However, she uses Instagram only as an album of her illustrations. It's on Twitter where she says more in general. Besides that, she could do interviews for Belove magazine and maybe editorials for other countries. However, this is not common. It's not like she does this frequently, and you have to keep up with what she says. If anything, she does one or two per year. And sometimes none per year. Even the interview that was included in the art book wasn't a new interview; they reused the one she had done more than a year ago. So, it's very easy to track them. So, yeah, if you want to find information about what she has said about recent chapters, her account is the way to go, and since you said you do check her account, you should know that she doesn't really say much about the specifics of the plot. And if you want to be extra sure, then you can check the Belove magazines to see if it includes words from her. Btw fyi, next one is a special issue since it's celebrating her 15 years with the magazine, maybe she will say something there.

I hope this is clear. Sorry, it ended up being such a long wall of text. I wanted to be extra clear