Toni

What a wonderful idea! Let's all propose to Yuzu with money bouquets! He never needs to worry about all that dating and romance fuss. He can just marry the audience. We already know that skating (showing off!) for an audience is his greatest love. A match made in heaven!

Yep, you've summed it up perfectly.

You're out of your tree, Cat Lady! I will never confess how much I spend on Yuzu... although, I will mention that he gets money for every sale of those Blu-rays (worth every penny), and he gets money for his music boxes, and his calendars, and of course FaOI books, and his first Blu-ray, and all his season photobooks, and... The good thing about him retiring will be that I can stop giving money to the ISU at competitions, and start giving it to Yuzu himself, by going to see him in FaOI instead... Can I just throw money at him while he skates?

Exactly! ... Those girls - I don't think people should try to get a star's personal attention while they're working - though lot's of young people don't get that, even at the metal ceremony, Yuzu is on-the-job. My screams only come out as unflattering guttural noises, anyway.

I empathize with you, very very deeply. I used to have to beg the local church for food and choose between bills to pay every month because my job paid so low, I was always struggling just to get enough gas money to get to work. I remember my $400.00 dollar car breaking down and feeling suicidal because I couldn't afford to get it fixed. It was so horrible. I think we're only having a semantic argument here, so let me rephrase it: Only die-hard fans who can also AFFORD to go to ACI will go to that event. I spoke to local store clerks and two Oakville AirBNB hosts who never even knew there was a mega-star figure-skater skating just around the corner from them. They also didn't care. WE care, and if we can afford it, we go there like it's a pilgrimage.

Um... did you really mean to draw an equivalence between screaming at a costume reveal and chasing Yuzu's car?! Or stealing other people's seats?! Or demanding Yuzu's personal attention?! Screaming happily is a gut reaction, whereas all the things you compared it to require a decision and an action. I had Winnie's to throw and an urge to throw them, but I did not throw the Poohs because that was against the rules, and it would have required a decision and an action. I wanted to watch only Yuzu in practice, but I deliberately looked away, to cheered for the other skaters too. I would never EVER chase someone's car or invade their privacy, no matter how emotional I felt. Please rethink this false equivalence, since I find fans who chase cars, boo at other skaters, flagrantly disregard rules, and steal other people's seats repugnant. And I would smash someone in the face if I saw them chasing Yuzu. ACI is the least important of all the contests Yuzu will attend this season and has a correspondingly small ticket price. But even with the low cost, only die-hard fans travel for ACI. Most FS fans don't even watch such contests on TV -- assuming they are even televised. They wait until the "real" events, like GPF and Worlds. Some only watch Worlds and the Olympics. People who travel to see any of the Challenger series, on the other hand, are truly dedicated fans. I, for instance, drove there for 8 hours from Massachusetts. To save money, I brought food with me and stayed in a cheap AirBNB. I wasn't saying that ALL die-hard fans travel to ACI, I was saying that ONLY die-hard fans do. I'm very sorry you if you couldn't afford to go, and I hope you have many more chances in the future to see Yuzu live.

Even if they know it, they can't even come out and say it in public, because they represent their counties and their coaching schools, so publicly admitting they were over-scored would be impossible. Maybe they are destined to never reach their true potential because there is nothing to improve (according to the corrupt ISU judges, anyway.) It's all very tragic.

Agreed. In a fair world, Yuzu would have won the FS by several points, but Nathan would have won the WC by a few points - not by the ridiculous margin the cheating, lying ISU judges gave him. What I think is tragic is that the over-scoring of Nathan and the under-scoring of Yuzu is absolutely NOT Nathan's fault. He's a good kid. And yet, I too, have trouble watching him without negative feelings. If it weren't for the ISU, I could actually enjoy Nathan's skating and his friendly rivalry with Yuzu. Instead, I have to struggle against feeling satisfied when he falls. Nathan is also being told he's perfect already and has no room to grow. Why should he improve his artistry, transitions, etc.? It's tragic.

I think everyone is over-analyzing the screaming. ACI, as the first contest of the season, will always lead to over-the-top screams, for multiple reasons: 1) we've had months of anticipation. 2) they add to the frenzy by making us fight for seats, waiting in line for many, many hours (some of us overnight) thus we're already in a frenzy, and 3) costume reveal. Since it's the die-hard fans who have the most emotional reactions at the first contest, and these are the fans who go to non-ISU events like ACI, also since everyone has now seen the costume in pictures and video, there will naturally be less pandemonium in the next events. Also: assigned seating, so less build-up. Yuzu deliberately revealed that costume early. He usually skates around for awhile, but this time, he took his jacket off almost immediately. I think he knew the reaction he would get and decided to get it over with early, so the disruption could die down as quickly as possible and the skaters could then practice in relative peace. I, for one, couldn't have stopped myself from screaming if I tried. Purple is my favorite color, and that costume... every time he passed by, I felt like... this must be what it felt like for the first people to see Michelangelo's David. A perfect masterpiece. I am not ashamed.

What a bunch of great ideas!

But what if he infiltrates the ISU and fixes it from within? I wouldn't put it past him.

I guess you heard it from the source? I only heard it from people talking about it, which is often like playing that game "telephone." Anyway, I sure hope they NEVER implement it.

I heard that the proponents of this idea are hoping to implement the technical/artistic split before 2022, though they're not sure when or even IF it will happen. I think fans are almost universally against it, so hopefully they will shelve that idea.

I think you're right, and it's very Japanese of Yuzu. He even complained in a recent interview that he was receiving too much preferential treatment. I think no Pooh-rain will even be a bit of a relief to him. I'm really worried that some fans plan to make anti-ISU banners. Yuzu prefers to work hard within the rules and find inventive ways to -- politely -- beat the system from within. So I think he would be deeply mortified by such actions by his own fans. It might even embarrass him enough to make him retire. Besides, all these threats to be done with figure skating after Yuzu retires are also threats against Yuzu himself, since Yuzu will ALWAYS be involved with figure skating (and probably, inevitably, in a position of power.) If figure-skating dies, so does Yuzu. He's also a mentor (future coach?) to many of the fine young people we would be hurting if we abandon the sport. He really likes the boys he's watched grow into better skaters, like Nathan and Shoma. He enjoys skating with them at exhibitions and knows it's not their fault that ISU is corrupt. He would be horrified about his own fans becoming Nathan and Shoma antis. Remember, to corruptly support US skaters when Patrick Chan was their star, ISU judges emphasized skating skills and GOE over BV of jumps, so Yuzu took up the challenge and blew PC out of the water. Now, because Nathan Chen only has average skating skills, they're corruptly changing the rules to emphasize BV over GOE, so Yuzu is upping his BV. He likes the challenge, since he loves jumping anyway. For Beijing 2022, they're planning to divide the programs into technical and artistic programs, with the idea of giving NC a far greater score on the technical program and then letting Yuzu win the artistic program only by a little, claiming art is in the eye of the beholder, thus securing a win by NC. Yuzu will definitely win even there if he surpasses NC in BV. To Yuzu, it's like a gauntlet has been thrown down - like starting all over with the thrill of an impossible challenge. So he'll go to Beijing if his ankles hold out and he can still increase his BV. If he can't do it, he'll retire -- without complaining.

Brian, waiting for the other members of the support group to arrive:

Thank you, I looked hard for a goat that looked more like Yuzu: slender, with a little face and long legs. The wise expression was an unexpected plus. SMALL ONE: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00WTUBF4E/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 BIG ONE: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XJ9D1VJ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I think most of us are just trying not to commit to him being gay OR straight because -- as Javi said -- Yuzu likes to be a mystery. It's very clumsy to try and "allow" someone to be straight, even if you think they aren't. Even the most benign attempt to say this comes out like you're saying there's something wrong with being gay.

I suspect Yuzu isn't actually training to DO quints yet. I think he might be doing quint-spins on the harness just to help his body learn to rotate that fast - basically, it may be part of his 4A training. The only reason I think that is that he recently said it was very difficult to get the body to spin that 4.5 times from a forward jump. He felt like there was a wall, but he was trying to break through it.

Thank you so much! Took a moment to figure out Ingur, but figure it out, I did.

Yuzu Goats are now dressed in their bright red, sparkly collars with personalized gold medals - ready to drive to ACI with me. The big one is for Yuzu's box (won't throw him on the ice.) I'm keeping the little one as a remembrance. The tags say "Yuzu" on the front and "G.O.A.T. Greatest Of All Time." (Note: I suck at photography. The collars are BRIGHT red, and the rhinestones are very sparkly.)

OMG, we've really all just gone 'round the bend! Yuzu, save us! Tell us your programs!

HAHAHA! You're right! He definitely would do that to us!

Okay, I just YouTubed Rasputin and... um... um... I... Um... but I DO see your logic. If Yuzuru-fucking-Hanyu skated to THAT, with all his vaunted skills, not one single soul will ever be able to think of anything but that ever again. Talk about psychological warfare, but the Earth would be scorched! Yeah, I was a little worried about Yuzu's intense focus on Sex Bomb too. Don't go there, Yuzu.

@Geo1 HORRORS!!! I actually like Rod's music, but NO, NO, NO to that song. (makes hex signs in the air) Good point. Or maybe "the Devil in disguise", though Teddy Bear would be more appropriate lyrics: Many good points. Also many good points.

Ohh, thank you so much!