The Astrarium finally matters:

Heaven Burns Red didn't have a new event today, but it did unlock the badge exchange feature.  The Astrarium let me earn badges which could then be exchanged for powerful new necklaces.  I purchased both the new necklaces on offer and am up to full equippable strength again.

The new score challenge was no match for my thunder squad, which got a blazing high score of 1.6 million, enough to earn all the rewards on offer in one go.  It's all thanks to Nanami and Byakko joining my thunder squad, I'm so much stronger now than when I relied on Yingxia.

Speaking of Byakko, thanks to my leftover paid quartz, I got her thundercat limit break up to 3.5.  I also got phantom thief Jamie up to level 4, max limit break.  Tuxedo Ruka went up to 2.5.  Waitress Kozue also reached 2.5.  Spica Yuina reached limit break level 2.  Hot springs Niina reached level 1.

I stripped Yingxia's extra reversions away from her and gave them to Ichiko instead.  Ichiko needed the extra skill slot because I had her learn her new master skill, which gives +10 stats to all sextuplets.  With Ichiko's support Squad 31-E may actually be strong now.  Misato also reached the crucial +5 reversions that gives an extra skill slot.  I slotted in her North Wind's Boon skill that improves her ice attack.  Sadly I failed to recruit the new Misato SS Memoria which probably would've given me access to a better skill, but I can't have everything.

Hisame also learned her master skill, which gives +1 Sp to all allies whenever Hisame breaks an opponent, something pajamas Hisame already wants to do, because Dreaming Desire rewards +8 sp to the entire squad whenever she breaks an opponent with it.  I'm giving Hisame all the support I can to keep her viable because she's so cute I want to keep playing her.

I also got 2 more mementos to max -- Spica Yuina's and base Nanami's.  If they're going to be the headliners of the thunder and light squad I need for them to be appropriately equipped.  That's +20 stats to the two of them.  Thundercat Byakko's memento isn't far behind, granting her +16 stats for now.

Spica Yuina's almighty skill, Bluestar Iridescence, is now max level. 

I taught Miya her skillful means orb skill.  Every serious character needs to know this skill, it's so useful.

Olympic women's individual figure skating resulted in an American winning gold, followed by two Japanese for silver and bronze.  I admit Alysa Liu did a perfect skate, but she didn't perform any hard jumps like the bronze medalist Ami did.  Ami landed two triple axels.  No one in the competition landed a quad, which is a huge regression from the previous Olympics where three Russian girls could.  So we're watching a bunch of phonies pretending to be gold medalists when they wouldn't even be bronze medalists 4 years ago.  To add insult to injury, when Alysa Liu was younger she was landing triple axels and quadruple lutzes, so the 'gold medalist' you see before you today is infinitely worse than her own younger self, who couldn't win gold.  Women's figure skating should be so much more splendiferous than this.

First, age limits need to be removed, so that younger girls who can land quads are allowed to compete.  Then Russia needs to be invited back to the Olympics, so Russian girls who can land quads are allowed to compete.  That will get us back to the ground level of quality skating we used to see in the sport.

Congratulations to the women's hockey team for beating Canada in overtime for the gold.  The ice hockey gold and the women's individual figure skating gold are worth a lot more than the gold medal in moguls.  With those medals, team USA moved ahead of team Italy in the medal count.

Russia got its first medal of the Olympics, in the new sport of ski mountaineering, a silver.  I watched the event and it was pretty fun but I wouldn't call it a very 'distinguished' medal.  Nevertheless, it's one more medal than Ukraine has earned.  I think it's ironic that Russia is banned from the Olympics and still gets more medals than Ukraine which has all sorts of institutional support.  It shows yet again that I bet on the winning side of this conflict.