Finally finished the story. First off, the stages. Not a fan of the artillery drones and definitely the overall difficulty felt higher than before. But nothing as gimmicky as chapter 6. Maybe it's cause having Nightingale really does trivialize the fire BS in the last stages. Tho I could also see just having high res defenders tank the fireballs since they only come from one direction. The exploding crystals tho. Not quite sure how to deal with those other than having snipers on hand. Anyway, since I waited this long to M3 Guard Amiya's skill 2, of course I had to do the lore accurate finisher. My thanks to 25thNight's video for the guide. I did have to compensate for having lower leveled ops than what he used. Still worked out in the end.

Story: "All of us met... so we could part one day." R8-8 is fucking sad. I knew it was gonna happen but god it hurt to see Alina go out like that. It even seems she lost her right arm and left leg. Implied cannibalism from the exiled Infected? I was actually expecting this to be the trigger for Kashchey but Alina was strong. She didn't let Talulah fall then. Unfortunately, she was gone for when it did happen. And of course it was quite the trauma. Letting infected just starve like that. Why not just quickly kill them... To go out of their way to do that just feels sadistic. Not surprising Talulah gave in to hate.

And damn Kashchey. He is such an Asshole. Like obviously he's the villain here but there's just the level of pettiness and ego that makes him so disgusting. For me, it was when Kashchey brought up Ch'en during the argument with Talulah that I found so deplorable. How fucking dare he bring up Talulah's family. He kidnapped her. Add the creepiness of being obsessed with Talulah and becoming Talulah. It actually reminds me of the villain from the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2. Both "fatherly figures" trying to control their "child" for some world/galaxy dominating plan. I want to interpret the ending as Talulah overcoming him. It started with the zoom out of the room and you can still the two shadows while Kashchey does his usual spiel but then it zooms in. Now we can't see the second shadow and it's just Talulah talking. That said, the post-ending scenes does reveal there are probably more like Kashchey or rather specifically the Black Snake. They are apparently called the Ageless (when I first read about him in tvtropes, the term was Eternals). It seems the Ursus Emperor and his minister are both against such beings. Speculation: Tho, I think Theresa or the Lord of Fiends that is being passed around is an Ageless too which makes Amiya one.

I do have to agree with Nevri on the EG extra story stuff. Only the Rosmontis and Feline Shieldbro one was significant. I do want to consider the Mephisto one as significant but I was expecting more. It does imply he might be back in some form but I didn't need an entire speech from Kal'tsit and most of that speech being redundant. It didn't end up being a good read. The rest were even more boring and useless. The 12F one lol. Lowlight might as well appear on the screen, look at the player and go "You. You're the Doctor."

Some other stuff: Yelena and Patriot! Such good daughter and daddy bonding. Yelena saying "Dad" and "Daddy"... so cute and so sad. Lol Patriot such a doting dad that even the Emperor's Blade called him out for it. If characters will be brought back, it has to be both of them together. I will accept nothing less. Speaking of the Emperor's Blade, it was quite the moment when they begged Patriot to return to them. It just shows how badass Patriot was. The Blades themselves were no slouch. Only five of them and it takes the entire Yeti squad just to hold back one. And then the reveal that Wei's Shadow Guards are former Emperor's Blades. This makes that one comment from the Yeti squad a bit hilarious in hindsight when they fought one of the Shadow Guards.

As for W, it really did feel like her scenes weren't significant. Did it really have to be her to stop Chernobog? It feels like anyone could have done it. I think Talulah should have done it. Would have showed more character growth. But I do think it was important for her to bring up Misha. Her tragic end continues to have significance even now. Doesn't have much impact tho when W barely shows any emotion about it and her being partly responsible for the whole thing. But the shipper in me just can't help appreciate Amiya reminding W about Theresa. Personally, I was satisfied with the post-battle Ch'en and Talulah interaction. Yeah shame we didn't see the initial talk but tbh, that would have mostly been Koshchey anyway and would just be him calling Ch'en his "sister" and that was creepy enough with the number of times he kept doing it. The sisterly banter was so good too. Ch'en is into isekai lol. Talulah was more than willing to spill all of her sister's dark secrets like a good sister ought to do XD. Surprised to know that Talulah was bullied a lot when she was younger. And the result of what I assumed was a friendly duel implied that she is physically weaker than Ch'en. That was fun to imagine. This being the last scene was a good end. Thank you HG for supporting my ship.

It's only natural for a wyvern to top

Nice to see JunAi while season 2 airs. Their episode was really good!

Now this is a Mother's Day fanart I like.

Thank you so much Negom-sensei

Looks they're younger here so maybe young Texas was quite affectionate.

I was actually surprised it didn't get included in this batch but Abyss Hunters poly trio is a thing and I'm glad for it. Thank you Gladia for joining in the Abyss Hunters yuri.

No.

^ That's a lot to take in. I can't reply to all of it right now. Also, I haven't finished the story myself but just knowing spoilers from last year. I'll just try to reply to what I can for now.

Also damn, Rosmontis x Amiya is canon and you can't convince me otherwise. We're in middle of operation, everything is falling apart and they're flirting like adorable degenerates they are <3

Not my ship but when Rosmontis said "Amiya is cuter", I can't help but think they're both the cutest "weapons"

Honestly if her or FrostNova will ever become playable, I'll probably save for them.

Personally not a fan of bringing back dead characters but if they're gonna do it, I do hope they include Ace

Ok, so I finally beat JT8-3.

Congrats! I'm actually gonna mastery Guard Amiya's skill 2 before I work on the stage but really good work on your end since no Nightingale is quite the challenge.

That being said I also had some issues with the story. First of all it felt like some dialogues were way too dragged out. Like it often felt less like dialogues and more like monologues.

Kal'tsit the philosopher has entered the chat but lol yes, that's just how it is and I've accepted it already. It really seems like the writers for Arknights wants to go on a philosophical/moral tirade. Honestly, if ever Arknights gets an anime, I do hope they cut down on the dialogue and take advantage of the animated medium to show more and not tell

It was teased constantly that Ch'en is on the way and then we never see her meeting and interaction with Talulah and only get a bit of interaction once we finally beat her. And W felt even more superficial. Like her talking with Rosmontis didn't really felt that great or amounted to much and her appearing at the end really wasn't that great either. In the end it just felt like a lot of tease for very lackluster pay-off.

That's disappointing to know. Maybe I'll have a different opinion. Personally, W's screentime in ch 7 didn't really bother me since that wasn't her time yet. I think that if ever W will get more focus, it will be during the Victoria arc or rather specifically when we'll confront Theresis.

Thirdly, those secret endings really amounted to nothing.

Haven't read it yet. But from what I know, Mephisto's secret ending possibly hints at him being playable in the future so there's that.

Lowlife was just rambling that just made no sense to me. Why is he talking about choices in game that has no and you can't really change the direction of the story? W/e it was actual 12F or him, it really didn't mean much.

Self-insert gotta self-insert XD

I really couldn't get behind the whole Deathless Black Snake thing. Like I understand the concept and it might be my bias, cos I'm not fan of the whole, possessing someone's body (I guess it also just feels uncomfortable/bad in general? but not like AK is friendly setting to begin with), but either way my main issue is, in the end I'm just not sure what really happened? Like so it was Kashchey or some other entity entirely? Do they possess Talulah or just influenced her. Is there anyone else he's possession outside of Talulah? And the most importantly, so how much of it was him manipulating Talulah and how much it was her actual will? Call me dumb, but I really wanted some sort of simple explanation at the end I can apply instead of this vague, it doesn't really matter, it might have been him, but also Talulah was ok with it. So was Talulah in control all the time until the very end? It's just so confusing. Personally I think that you could easily remove entire possession thing from story with very little changes and imo it'd actually work even better.

Have to disagree with this one but I suppose YMMV on possession. But I'll try to clarify what I know: Kashchey is just another body. The Deathless Black Snake is an immortal being that transfers itself to a host and it's supposed to be implied he's been doing this for thousands of years. Also, the one monologue of the heretical priest in M8-1 is implied to his previous host before Kashchey since they both espoused the same Social Darwinist idea. His control over Talulah was also not total control in that sense since Talulah could resist if she wanted too. The implication I believe in is that Talulah is so broken and distraught over Alina that she couldn't really resist the Black Snake which is probably why it saw that as the opportunity to take control. Another interpretation is that she wanted to be possessed by the Black Snake in order to justify her actions. For me, this entire possession thing is a big part of Arknights. For the main story, the possession of Talulah serves as a contrast to what maybe a "possession" of Amiya tho it remains to be seen how that will go since interpretations can go from all of Theresa is in Amiya to Amiya just has her powers and bit of her memories but she's her own person. I'd also like to add the recent CN Event Under Tides: the big revelation about the Abyss hunters and what's happening to both Skadi and Gladia.

My fanfiction head-canon:

Before I even finished reading it, I immediately thought "Magneto right?" and lo and behold you did mention him as your analogy. That was a fun read. Could be an actual fanfic with full on story perhaps even showing more of Talulah's character like how badly she was affected by the deaths of Faust, FrostNova, and Patriot and perhaps even expand on that and show how deep inside every death of a Reunion member is eating her inside.

Last thing, Darknights hinted at this and we got some more hints in chapter 7 and I think we should have gotten some in chapter 8 too (I'll find out when I finally finish chapter 8) that Reunion was just another tool for Theresis to sow chaos. He likely wanted them to cause an incident that will justify him getting into power. It's implied in Skyfire's archive that something did happen in Victoria because of Reunion. Kashchey and Theresis may have also both viewed each other as tools for their own respective ends. Kashchey wants Ursus while Theresis seems to want Kazdel and Victoria. Had Reunion succeeded, it would have been a win-win for both of them.

^A bit out of nowhere but everytime I see your pfp I have to stop for a few seconds to realize what it is

Well, knowing the characters the tails belong to helps but yeah I get what you mean. It's not exactly obvious.

Do horses tail even move like that

Given that there's very little bone inside a horse's tail, definitely not. But who cares... @luinthoron is right. Science be damned in the name of cute tailholding.

^ That's the part I'm most excited for in Chapter 9 onwards. Tho, it might not be a thing until at the end of the Victoria arc.

Back when Talulah was a hero.

And now there's a chance for her to return.

Miyahara-sensei posted a cute little followup comic on Twitter today to promote volume 3:

https://twitter.com/aib_miyy/status/1390654805954088961

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! PAIRED RINGS!

...oh I'm die. Thank you forever.

^I don't get it lol

I assume you're not getting the Theresa'd Amiya pic? It just seems to be Amiya with Theresa's eye color and a white glyph in contrast with her usual black one. Notably, Theresa is associated with white.

Tailholding needs to be its own tag. Cute.

McTeio really got me on board rival shipping.

I nominate Height gap cause of head on another's head which is really cute. I like seeing tall girls doing this to their shorter partners.

@V-Oblivion, maybe... but hear me out, what if... Theresa'd Amiya

The latest chapter gave a bickering married couple vibe.

Blazethroat!

Pain

Happy Tong Tong means all is right with the world. Also, I'd like to interpret the last panel of page 4 as a sign.

There can't seriously be more Frostnova x Frostleaf out there than stuff like Blue Poison x Glaucus. Can't say I've seen more than 2 pics of that. And no WxTheresa? Seen a ton of that. LappxExu is also a looooooot higher than I was expecting, but I can dig it.

It's a fanmade poll so I wouldn't take this video as the 100% true not fake popularity of these ships. Also it's all in CN and not counting fanart/fanfic/fan content of other platforms from outside of LOFTER. There's a fair amount of ship art that's on Twitter/Pixiv that haven't been counted.

I would like to add that the lofter pairing tags include not just fanart but also screenshots, meme edits, videos, fanfictions, and just general blog posts talking about the pairing. For sure, some pairings may have more fanart, but other pairing tags may have more overall content.

While that is quite possible (and the possibility of another version of him still being somewhere out in Terra is but another terrifying thought),

Isn't the implication in the ch 8 ending that the Deathless Black Snake still lives on in Talulah? Biding its time until it can regain control again...

New annihilation seems pretty straightforward.

I found it easier that you fight the two bosses one at a time in contrast with the Maria Nearl event.

Also IIRC the way they made this poll was in the amount of people who participated in the LOFTER tags right? I don't think Talulah x Alina even has a tag that all shippers use cause most of the popular art I see in the Talulah tag are mostly with her and those ones aren't tagged with the ship. This goes with some of the other ships too where they just don't tag the ship with specific names cause there's just no unified ship name for some of them. Instead it'll just get tagged with the names of both people or sometimes just one if one of the characters is an NPC who isn't as known.

It seems you don't know but 塔娜 is the pairing tag for Talulah x Alina. But you're right that the tag is not used consistently and there's quite a number of art of the pairing that just has the character tags. We don't know if the video took that into consideration or it really was just pairing tags.

Speaking of, some art from Twitter: photos of a happier time, fluffy dragon hair, and an alternative pairing but still just as sad.

It helps that the 2nd season of the anime pretty much pushed McTeio, giving them an episode dedicated to their date, and the ED song is their duet.