(used to be) skating things

happy hsr update!! i couldn’t control myself and finished playing the story today. they truly cooked i think penacony’s story is truly my favourite now (if you haven’t played it i hope you have fun!!)

Thanks! I'm settling in alright. I am sorry to hear that the weather in Singapore remains diabolical. But here, let me distract you for a bit from that heat, check out some of my Peak Basic™ touristy photos, Tokyo tower

and uh, lots of Pikachu's at a shop window

yeah, penacony has been my favourite so far in hsr as well! can’t wait for aventurine (i hope i win the 5050). my friend actually got me to play hi3 last year and i liked the story a lot, but i stopped playing as things got busy for me haha! i will continue playing when im free… i was only on chapter 17? so i have a lot of the story left to enjoy!

also i took a look at your supports and damn. that might actually be the most cracked jingyuan i’ve ever seen! what the heck! lore accurate jingyuan fr fr

Thank you!!! I'm looking forward to enjoying 'em seasons while they still exist you know, as in before global warming turns them into a distant memory as the sun slowly roasts us alive 🫠🫠🫠

I'm glad you liked my Jing Yuan lol. I think he still has room for improvement (somebody pls manifest for me a decent lightning damage sphere I beg) but I can't deny that I've spent an unholy amount of time farming that goddamn follow up attack relic set ever since it came out, all because the Mr. General is my favorite. The relic system in this game sucks even worse than the Genshin artifact stuff - there, I said what I said. Anyway, best of luck with your pulls! Over here I'm also on 50/50 and at close to zero pity but I'm telling myself that it's only fitting for it to be a gamble when you're pulling for Aventurine 🙃

Also for no particular reason lemme show you this stupidly extra big merlion plushie I came across today

anyway i'm not sure if you're still playing star rail but i enjoyed belobog even though some of the story beats were kinda cliche. xianzhou was nice but i think a lot of it was hidden in the collectible items (which is a shame because i like dan heng a lot). i've been loving the penacony plot though! i thought aventurine's story was very moving and i liked him a lot more after the quest hehe

anyway, i hope you're doing well :D please take care in the overwhelming heat and 9% gst <33

Hi there! I totally agree with you about the Singapore weather. It's truly getting to the point of insufferable, which has left me no choice other than leaving the country altogether. So yeah I'm moving to Japan next week haha.

I still play HSR. Contrary to popular opinion I don't think the Belobog story was as great as the fandom likes to make it out to be. Like you said it's a bit cliched in some places and I still couldn't get over the whiplash of how fast the Seele-Bronya connection developed (and I did play HI3 so I get why that fan service plot element was there, but still). The Xianzhou storyline was ok IMO. Not perfect by any means but not as bad as the fandom likes to make it out to be either (istg this fandom seems to have extreme opinions about everything). As for Penacony, I only truly got on board with it in this current patch (maybe I'm emotionally defective or something but I really did not care about Firefly last patch) and yea it's because of how well written Aventurine's character was. Gotta give the writing team at Hoyo a huge kudo for this one. Can't wait for the Aventurine banner to start. I'll get him even if I've got almost every other sustain in this game 🤡

Btw I assume you're on the Asia server for HSR? If you want to be friends on there my UID is 800740717. I have pretty decently built characters (if I do say so myself) as support if you ever need 'em 😛

hope you've been well. forgive me if this is an ask you'd rather not answer because it seems you have moved on from figure skating (and for good reason tbh) but I know you were a massive kaori fan, and I just wanted to ask... are you happy to see her thriving these days, even from a distance? she is probably the only reason I've stuck in this thing as long as I have

how did you find honkai star rail btw? i played it on my friend's recommendation and ended up finishing v1.0 in around 9 days, which is definitely not normal behaviour haha

It's not weird at all. I always appreciate whenever I've got people checking in on me. Not to be morbid on main but seeing that I live by myself one of my biggest unreasonable fears is that one of these days I'd trip on a chair and die alone in my apartment without anyone noticing for the longest time.

Anyway.

It's terribly hot these days isn't it? I went out for a bit earlier today and felt like I was burning in the deep circles of hell as soon as I set foot outside of an air conditioner's range. Do take care of yourself in this heat okay?

Somehow I keep forgetting to include tumblr in my usual routine of coffee and mindlessly scrolling through social media. Anyhoo, what's everyone been doing for fun recently? Me, I'm reading The Magician's Daughter by H.G. Parry - I'm almost done and it's a pretty nice book but not as good as her previous 3 books, which if I'm completely honest is a bit disappointing (I do recommend her other 3 books by the way they are excellent and yet I think suffering from an almost criminal lack of popularity). I've been playing a lot of Octopath Traveler 2; I'm 66 hours in and have exhausted almost all of the side quests, about to move on with the main story (side quests before main is just the normal way of playing RPG am I right, I am sure everybody does that, yes, most definitely). I'm also rather hyped for Honkai Star Rail's release later this month, anyone around here going to play that game?

@skating peeps: I watched Worlds last month by the way, first competition I've watched live since forever. Excellent event eh?

I went glamping up in the mountains in Thailand a couple of weeks ago. Here's a photo from the site:

I do still watch skating once in a while, but what I watch in most cases are old performances. It's been a hot minute since I last watched a live competition. In fact, the last event I watched live and in its (almost) entirety was the Beijing Olympics, and friend, I understand exactly what you meant about the lingering bad taste. My condolences to both of us.

Sadly I haven't found any other sport to move on to. Can't even find a new fave to support in tennis so I haven't watched that stuff in a while either. Best I can do these days for live entertainment is checking out some Twitch streams once in a blue moon. What can I say other than that my mid-life crisis is going strong.

Hi! Thank you for liking my old posts! I should take this opportunity to warn people that many of my old skating contents, especially the ones dealing with the more numerical aspects of the scoring system, are out of date by now, due to the fact that the ISU has screwed over revised their TES system half a dozen times or so since I last posted anything figure skating on this blog. I like to think that the more general observations I posted about the execution of skating elements are still valid though (last time I checked there were still only 6 jump types officially recognized in the ISU SOV, for example).

Thank you for saying "wonderful rainy days", friend. I need to and will show your message to my colleagues. Everyone at my workplace seems to think that I am some sort of psychopathic alien masquerading as an unconvincing human whenever I state my preference for the rainy sort of weather. Rainy + cool Singapore is the best version of Singapore that there is, am I right?

Hi there y'all. Not sure who is even reading this but if you are and if you used to know me from the skating fandom from back in, oh, I don't know, 5 years ago, basically I just want to say hi, it's been a while. In case you are one of those lovely folks who have cared enough about good ol' me here to try checking on me at any time in the past 5 years, I just want to reiterate that you are a lovely human being and I'm deeply sorry for how utterly terrible I have been at keeping in touch. I am generally extremely very bad at keeping in touch - this applies to every social relationship, not only the ones on Tumblr. I've been meaning to work on improving that aspect of myself but eh, I never seem to get anywhere with it, strangely enough.

In any case, so I've decided to log back in to Tumblr, for the most basic and predictable of reason which is that I don't like being on Twitter anymore.

Now I do have to clarify that for various reasons, I no longer consider myself an active part of the figure skating fandom. I do still watch the sport from time to time but I no longer have any desire or motivation to create the sort of content I used to do - I apologize if this disappoints you. I'm up for it if anyone wants to have casual chitchat about skating though. Or casual chitchat about non-skating-related things, yeah those might work out even better. I can talk to you about how much I dislike the weather in Singapore, for example.

Anyhow, before I go today, here are some koalas I saw last year:

Do you know what has happened to that skater since his career ended? What has he been doing instead of skating? Is he enjoying it? Is he happy with his life right now? If he is, and I really hope he is, it means that he’s somehow gotten past the disappointment with skating. In that case, don’t you think you should be able to move on as well? I’m not making light of your anger and depression, but between you and him, he is surely the one much more directly impacted by the abrupt end to his promising career, no? If he’s able to let it go, can you not find it in you to be happy for him? And from there, maybe to accept that there is nothing either you or him can do to change what happened?

That, in a nutshell, is how I usually deal with any frustration caused by a favorite person while doing their sport: remind myself that however shitty I may feel right now, it can’t possibly be compared to what he/she is going through, and if they can pick themselves up to get over it, so can I. After all, the main reason why I become a fan of an athlete is usually that they’ve managed to inspire something in me and make me want to become more like them - if not in the physicality aspect, then at least in the mentality side of it.

In the worst case, if your favorite skater is unhappy and the memory of skating still haunts him, how about trying to reach out to him directly (since you mentioned you’ve interviewed his coach, I think it might be possible for you to get information on the skater himself)? I’m sure he’d appreciate the support, especially given how much you obviously care about him, and I think it’d do both of you good to have someone to talk to who shares the knowledge about the whole ordeal. 

I am sorta afraid now. The most generous remark I could make about Wilson as a choreographer is that his programs are hit-and-miss? So let’s hope it’s a hit this time with Mai, that’s all we can do.

I also liked the fierce vibe Mai had at SOI, though I’m still not convinced that I’d want to see her do another sexy tango. It’s just not... her thing, I guess. 

Hello there, sorry for taking forever to get back to you on this (work is crazy and I just picked up a new video game so like… haha… *whisper* please send help). 

So, first, no, I don’t think you’re being greedy. I’d also want to see more variety in Yuzu’s ChSq in particular. I love the flavorful touches he put on his hydroblade this season by linking it with the one-foot Axel in Otonal and switching up the position in Haru yo, Koi - I hope to see more of such creativity next season, with possible application on the layback Ina Bauer as well. In addition, I’d give anything for him to bring back the sit twizzle (no Yuzu I still am not forgiving you for taking it out of Origin)

or any extended twizzle really

choreographed inside Ina Bauer

and even just a simple change edge spread eagle.

The thing is, Yuzu has so many nice, “wow” moves in his arsenal, I’d say it’s just a matter of him figuring out the right music and the right way to incorporate the right selection of moves into his choreography, which brings me to the next thing I very much look forward to, which is new music. I can say with confidence that I wouldn’t have any issue if he chooses to repeat Otonal and Origin next season, but if he decides to construct one or two new programs, I really hope he’d pick something classical, especially so if it’s for his LP. Yuzu hasn’t had a free skate set to classical music since… what… his first season as a senior? A violin concerto, a string quartet, a sonata, any kind of chamber music with a violin in it - I’m game. I think Yuzu and his style have both matured enough that now’s a good time to revisit that most fundamental of combinations: skating and classical music, and I believe he’d do a stellar job given the fitting music.

Continued:

Secondly, I’ve heard Kurt Browning commentated more than once that he’s amazed how relaxed/“quiet” Yuzu’s upper body was when he jumped, I’d like to ask if you can elaborate that point more, better yet, can you show me how “not-relaxed” other skaters might be when performing a jump? 

I actually have touched on this same topic before and miraculously enough I was able to find that old post, here you go.

In that old post I used Patrick, Shoma, Javi, Nathan, Boyang (the 2017 WC top 6) for juxtaposition, but it should be noted that none of those 5 is whom I’d call a “muscled” jumper. Their upper body might not be as totally relaxed as Yuzu, who is absolutely in a league of his own in that regard, but their takeoff postures are all fair enough to look at, and they don’t overuse their upper body to force start the rotation either. If you want to know what a truly “not relaxed” upper body looks like, I, sadly, have to point you to Junhwan (as discussed here in comparison with Javi), and Zhenya, especially back around when she was in junior / first turned senior. See the way she pushed her arms out taut and tensed up her shoulders before both of the jumps?

Now you can compare Zhenya’s 3F3T against this combo of Kaori’s below to see the difference between her takeoff and one with a quiet, relaxed upper body (most of the Japanese ladies are pretty good at that, but I think Kaori is truly the standout example even among her teammates). 

Continued:

Thirdly, in regard to the current rivalry between Yuzu and Nathan, I felt the same as Brian Orser that it kind of reminds me of back in 2013-14, when Yuzu was a teenager rising star chasing Patrick the 3 time worldchampion. And Yuzu was known as a great jumper back then while Patrick was renowned for his skating skills, and it was very excited to see them go against each other. Now Yuzu is so well rounded (pray for his ankle!) and Nathan is developing quickly too, are we gonna see more of that excitement in the next year or two? I hope its good for the sport. Sorry about this long Questions post. :)

Yes, of course, it’s good for the sport to have a lot of variety in (1) the natural baseline abilities of the skaters (2) which areas each skater chooses to focus on and (3) the strategies employed by the skaters, as a result of (1) and (2) combined. It’s also great for the sport to have a new generation developing and competing against the older one(s), whilst both continuously pushing / inspiring each other to move forward. A sport lacking such generational movement, IMO, is as good as dead, and no matter how intense the competition among the existing generation is, when you look at it as a whole, such a competitive landscape would ultimately feel somewhat… bleak (for lack of a better word). I know that feeling very well because that gloom and doom mood just about sums up the prospect of men’s tennis for the last half of the decade. Sure it’s been fun and it still is, mostly, to watch the holy trinity of Roger - Rafa - Novak trying to one-up each other on how many entries they have in the history book, but one can’t help but screaming into the void, from time to time: where are all the darned kids? 

So, yeah, you could say that, even though the outcome of their competition might not always be to my liking, I’m glad that a rivalry of sort exists between Yuzu and Nate, I think it does make the men’s competition more scintillating to follow for new and old fans alike, and just as importantly, I believe it’s part of the reasons why Yuzu’s decided to stay with us for at least another season.