I own the throne:

The title badge for defeating an anachrony rewards the player with a bit of quartz per character.  So I've been getting every seraph in my army their anachrony title badges in order to harvest free quartz.  The plan paid off incredibly well as I managed to roll up King Ruka on my first try.

King Ruka is a sick new SS Memoria that's both dark and fire element, and has a powerful combo of abilities that first gives Ruka tactical vision, then gives itself bonuses for having tactical vision.  Aside from Hisame's Dreaming Desire or base Erika with her block-everything angel shield, this is probably the strongest SS Memoria they've released.  Of course, at limit break level 0 that potential is meaningless, but that's okay.  Protean Shards can be harvested with nothing more than time played, but getting the SS Memoria in the first place is the big hurdle.

I also got via good luck the base Mion SS Memoria, this time from an 'S-or above guaranteed ticket.'  Almost always that means an S Memoria, but this time it was an 'above.'  Base Mion has an ability I can skill evolve, which would make her an extremely good healer, second best only to Tama.  Healers are always in demand, so once I get enough Nordstrom Crystals and Diamonds I'll definitely make use of this new acquisition.

I vainly took another shot at Apophis, but all I could do was break its dp bar.  Its hp bar is still infinitely huge.  I have a vague plan of how I could theoretically defeat it, using nothing but healers, field creators and defenders.  If I could cancel out every way the Anachrony damages me, and then just whittle away at its health a few thousand damage a turn, eventually, no matter how long it takes, I could theoretically triumph.  But that starts with getting good enough healers and defenders to even attempt the strategy.

After playing all of my Final Fantasy Magic decks, only two displayed any notable strength -- one based on the new land type, Towns, the set introduced, and the other based around a bunch of FF-lore based Legendary creatures and the Sagas they can summon via graveyard recursion.  But I'm afraid even these two decks are nothing special, compared to the strength of combos and cards in previous sets.  Hopefully these two decks can at least reach middling strength, so my FF deck design spree won't have been entirely pointless.

I've liked Akai Hitomi so far, but I don't like the sudden and random plot twist where Shinku becomes an amnesiac who can't retain memories past an hour.  That basically means she's brain dead and should just be mercy killed.  To throw such a random curve ball from out of nowhere doesn't feel narratively satisfying.  Ef told this story properly with a long foundation and foreshadowing, Chihiro's story was perfect.  There's no point in other visual novels trying to steal that good story for themselves, they'll inevitably just do it worse.

As I predicted, Week 1 of the NFL was full of thrilling, close games and star players making stellar plays.  Bills vs. Ravens was one for the ages.