yuzuangel

I think it's pretty clear that Yuzu does not speak directly about these things. Not that that means any one of us should speak for him, either, but just saying

Honestly, I don't even see anything wrong with cheering when Yuzu lands a big jump during someone else's runthrough. You don't see beautiful breathtaking quads every day, and a runthrough is still just practice. Welp, maybe some of the fans that I felt were trying to out-scream each other were Keegan fans, lol.

I wouldn't say only a small portion of his fans think he is a human being with his own thought and individuality. I think most fans think like that -- definitely the majority -- but by definition the fans that are trying to be the loudest usually are. Most of us also put him on a pedestal, too, because well, he belongs there, but we still understand that he's human and feels all that which comes with being human. Most fans at ACI were great sports, and so many people cheered for so many skaters that it warmed my heart. The way people were cheering for Harry Mattick (and his adorable reactions to those fans), and the way the crowd supported the Filipino skater (Edrian?) who lost steam halfway through his program was all really nice to see. The skaters sure looked like that appreciated that. I wouldn't be surprised if going to ACI were both an intimidating but also awesome experience for skaters just because Yuzu would most likely attend and "bring" his loud and fun fanclub in tow

On twitter I wanted to point out that Yuzu might not like the over-the-top cheering that could disturb his opponents but got attacked for implying that there shouldn't be any cheering at an arena (which IMO you need to be intentionally trying to pick a fight to interpret it that way) and that this is somehow policing/censoring fans. But I was at ACI and to me, the cheering came off obnoxious at times. I was sitting pretty close to the front and I was able to see Yuzu's expression relatively clearly, and to me he seemed a bit tired of it. Again, this is all my impression, but before this year's ACI I was squarely in the "When faced with the beauty of Yuzu and his skating, we are loud and unable to control ourselves, and we shouldn't have to if we're not being disrespectful" camp, so I was surprised to notice myself being concerned with the cheering. I'm sure he feels that 99.9% of his fans raise him up. And I know I cheer so much at all of Yuzu's competitions that I usually lose my voice for days, so it's not just about the cheering. But to me a small number of fans felt like they were competing with each other on who could be the loudest, most passionate fans, and the behavior felt unnatural to me, as if it were less about Yuzu and more about them. It felt like some fans would scream at the top of their lungs whenever Yuzu so much as glided by their section doing nothing at all, and it didn't feel like an emotional reaction, but rather a concerted effort to make noise and get noticed. There are other things, too, but there's no point in getting into all the details. Everyone makes mistakes, including me, and this discussion has led me to reevaluate stuff that I do and how I could improve as well. Just to make this clear, the vast vast majority of fans were beyond amazing. For those who feel personally attacked, though, maybe they should wonder why that is Just my two cents.

Unfortunately, I agree. I think Kaori is pleasant to watch, but she doesn't have the tech (no lutz in the SP because of obvious flutz, only one lutz in the FS that gets called), nor does she have the reputation scoring. Wakaba...sigh. Poor girl, it seems like she's constantly injured, so I'm not sure we'll see enough consistency and 3As (if any) in competition for her to challenge the top ladies. Satoko...her jumps are no better than before, and her consistency may be worse than ever. I don't see her being a medal contender at Worlds anymore, and with the rise of other Japanese ladies over her, she will see dips in her PCS as well. Even though she should be getting one of the highest PCS in the field. I think a lot of people, including me, are willing to bet that Sasha Trusova will dominate the season. Her technical arsenal and her consistency is unparalleled. She's not my favorite skater to watch, but her team knows how to focus her strengths by giving her power programs, and power is one thing she has in spades. I think Alina will be on the World team even without quads, if she can skate clean. She is the World and Olympic champion, she has sooo much experience by now compared to the rest, and if clean will get favorable scoring. The third spot on the team (barring any injuries/loss in form from Alina and Sasha), will probably be a bloodbath with Anna and Liza fighting it out for who can land the most quads/3As, and Evgenia possibly able to score higher than both if she's squeaky clean. Alena Kostornaia...is a beautiful skater but doesn't seem to get rewarded for it, and might need a few of the more favored ladies/ladies with more quads and 3As to fail.

I think they take energy in different ways. If a jump is like a sprint then a spin is probably more like a marathon. Or like strength vs. endurance.

That's actually an interesting question: why do skaters end on spins so often? I think the answer why they don't start with them is probably because -- as Shoma once said -- spins while not particularly hard for top skaters, take a LOT of energy, so most skaters save that for their biggest jumps. I also think that might be the same reason why skaters end on their grandest spins, because it must be hard to recover from them, although I don't think it's dizziness because most top skaters probably don't feel so dizzy from spins anymore, but more like exhaustion: they can literally use up ALL their remaining firepower for the spin and not have to worry about doing anything more.

I think it's him, lol.

@Salior thanks for the suggestions! My honest thoughts are that... I'm not super excited about this project right now, both due to being unsure abt the new design and also the emotional baggage of everything that had transpired. From this thread, it feels like everyone else is feeling the same? Of course if anyone else still wants to keep working on any sort of banner project I would love to help, but for now I think I will just put it on hold unless something else comes along that feels right.

I'm on the edge of my seat w h o c o u l d i t b e

Here are some of my designs. These are low-res mockups. But I was thinking a world map and a "pin" sticker for you to put on your map to signify where you come from. The pin can be a heart, actual pin, or a combination of the both? Heart pin: Normal "location" pin: Combination of the two: Dark text: Giant pin (for visibility): The font and text and color of everything can change. But thoughts? We could also use a simpler map but I thought this one was pretty.

That is cool, thanks for sharing!

I don't think so highly of Planet Hanyu / this project that I would believe we have the power of shutting down all nationalistic banners, lol. Hence I wouldn't go so far to call this censorship The image files for the banners are in this thread, and nothing is stopping people from printing and waving whatever they want in an arena as long as the arena allows it. Anyway, as a Taiwanese person living in the U.S. who grew up hearing stories from parents and family members about being barred from international events and having trouble visiting some countries due to being Taiwanese, this was a particularly painful decision. Even with this knowledge it didn't cross my mind that there would be issues with something as innocent as waving your own small handheld flag at a figure skating event, otherwise I wouldn't have put everyone through the drama and trouble. To you (and many others) it may seem like concern trolling, but PH isn't really in the business of determining if it is or not. We really just wanted to show that Yuzu is loved all over the world. That's it.

Omg that looks like a cheap medal Fanyus in the arena: OMG the Practices are starting...in 5 hours!

No one threatened anyone afaik, it was more like "we are afraid fights may happen" (but not in like a threatening way)

Yes, the toe axel is particularly jarring. It's a mistake that lower-level skaters make but you rarely see in international competition.

Well, the biggest problem would be how would you measure it that exactly.

Lol, Yuzu will retire if that plan is ever implemented. He wouldn't be able to recognize the sport anymore.

Thanks for the support, but it's not really me who thought of it. There were many fans who brought this to my attention via Twitter and PH

Okay okay, I don't think that @SparkleSalad or @Frenchkiss70 are accusing us of giving up in the face of criticism here; they're just unhappy that fans are making this into an issue in the first place. We are disappointed that we are pressure by politics, NOT that we "gave in" to politics, because in the end that was the right thing to do. To clarify though, we didn't change the project because fans were unhappy about it. We changed it because certain fans made the case that this might affect Yuzu. That it might throw Yuzu into a controversy through no fault or doing of his own. This doesn't make sense to me but we can't say for sure that these reactions would not occur, so we took them seriously. Some fans even hinted that there might be violence in the arena if fans are seen holding up certain flags (!!) I don't know the extent of the risk, because I am not an expert on cross-strait relationships and how it influences the culture and behavior of people involved, but we don't want any risk at all. If it was literally just certain fans being unhappy with the flags because of their own politics, with no risk at all to Yuzu or his fans, we would have ignored it.

Yeah, so a lutz that is 90 degrees PR is within the leeway, but if it is 180 degrees or so PR then there should probably be some sort of deduction along with URs. So skaters that underrotate 90 degrees but prerotate 90 degrees on the lutz shouldn't be penalized while a skater that prerotates 180 degrees but doesn't underrotate gets away with it. My proposal is a combined 90 degrees allowed "excessive on-ice rotation" or something but that's probably wayyy too complicated for ISU

Yeah, you could be right. It looks parallel to the boards at first glance to me but could also possibly be not parallel to the boards, LOL. It's hard to tell. If so then yes it could be slightly more than 180 degrees PR. I wouldn't call it for PR if I were the tech panel though. But seeing Yuzu's jump as a comparison it does look a little more PR'd than Yuzu's. Yuzu in general just takes less time on that setup/entry. But sometimes I think the fandom goes a little crazy over PR when sometimes it just comes down to people jumping a little differently and it's not worth grabbing the protractor for (IMO). I think it's egregious if it's 90 degrees or more than allowed though, just like URs.

does this takeoff look parallel to the boards? It does to me but I could be wrong bc angles

Oh, I definitely agree he didn't land like that, since the jump was highly underrotated. But if you took the screenshot of when he touches the ice it wouldn't tell you about pre-rotation because he completes some of that rotation on the ice. The screenshot I took was the angle I felt like he would have landed his jump had it been completed rotated. At that "completely rotated" position he seems to be parallel to his takeoff position, which indicates about a 180 degree PR. Correct me if I'm wrong but prerotation is calculated with respect to the direction of the skater's momentum and not when he starts setting up the jump (which may be on a tight curve) or the position of his blade when it hits the ice (in the case of UR)? The UR is another issue, but it has nothing to do with how much prerotation occurred. Anyway, maybe it's the angle. But it just looks like a normal loop jump to me.

I don't think Anna and Sasha's jumps are as bad as Alysa's. Basically everyone (incl guys) PR 180 degrees nowadays that their quads are pretty "normal."