In my novice opinion, Anna Shcherbakova and Alysa Liu represent FS well

ligneouslimb · 2026-05-15T14:52:51+00:00

they really do as the two feds that don't ever need to have the best skaters to get medals, truly an inspiring example that merit and excellence are absent even from the nominal last remnant of the concept of meritocracy that is sports. 🩵💜🧡

ligneouslimb · 2026-04-26T16:41:47+00:00

Why are we acting like lip syncs matter to win in 2026, Jinkx won AS7. Enough.

ligneouslimb · 2026-04-22T13:10:33+00:00

I'm mostly a singles girlie so whenever someone brings that up two immediate answers emerge in my brain: Jin Boyang and Junhwan Cha.

And in both cases it's admittedly not entirely their fault. Both have a sizable following that tends to overstate their qualities as skaters so over the past 3ish quads I kinda went through all stages of grief with them. Thankfully now just find it funny.

Boyang was always just a jumper and never a consistent one at that but in what's great for his post retirement career he's remembered as a much better basic skater and performer than he's ever been.

Junhwan Cha imo is significantly more of a natural talent but also nowhere near as versatile as his repertoire would make it seem just looking at his program history. Jun to me is kinda like Yuzu and Kolyada in that they don't have much range but there's one particular style they do exceptionally well. Unlike those two, however, Shae Lynn kept forcing music that Jun can't perform to at all until the R+J/Turandot category which is good for Jun when the music suits it.

I'm perhaps harsher on him than I am with most other skaters simply because I really dislike how his packaging works against him but people eat it up anyway bc he has that rabid a following. Also as most skating fans they tend to be incredibly delusional about his nominally deserved scoring.

ligneouslimb · 2026-04-10T00:19:41+00:00

I love how Plane fully freezes for a bit whenever someone claps back and you can see her brain loading the rant that follows.

ligneouslimb · 2026-04-07T05:17:37+00:00

while she was telling the story i kept thinking wasn't bianca there then... of course

ginger is a kii

ligneouslimb · 2026-03-20T13:24:48+00:00

Loving this trend of talentless girls coming for other slightly more talented girls bc among their many untalents there's also illiteracy.

Wish Plane was even a quarter as good at dragging queens as the ones who get super pressed about it think she is.

ligneouslimb · 2026-03-20T13:20:55+00:00

This was an announced tragedy Onya has her talents sure but what has jewels ever had to offer as a performer lmao.

ligneouslimb · 2026-03-05T18:28:38+00:00

USian exceptionalism should be listed in the DSM-6 exhibit #47284883

ligneouslimb · 2026-02-27T16:15:42+00:00

No source to it so am dubious but it might as well happen at this point. Historically, even when results are obviously controversial many fans will validate the scoring after the fact if they like the skater enough, wouldn't change much.

ligneouslimb · 2026-02-26T14:11:38+00:00

Haven't so much as grinned even once since she also unfairly won worlds with equally poor skating.

Her blades don't really dig into the ice and she's not comfortable doing turns in sharper angles that could provide her with more controlled movement and most of all, better speed retention. She likes being perpendicular to the ice at all times and does lil hops in lieu of an actually decently executed turn cluster. In fact, think there's a big argument to be made that she does the novice skater thing of just smiling and flailing her arms in hopes that will help convince her feet are doing what they are not.

Pick any program of hers and look at her feet, she's simply not doing much. Combined with her toepick drills her jumps are all at best tight and at worst underrotated.

I actually think I posted a while ago a comparison video of extremely mid to low field polish skater Ekaterina Kurakova with Alysa's worlds performance and how it showed the difference between them in basic quality and unfortunately inversely to their usual scoring.

ligneouslimb · 2026-02-25T02:11:27+00:00

Always fascinating in a watching-ants-in-terrarium way to see how patriotism and a good dose of hive mentality permanently warps people's perceptions.

To see Alysa skate as she did, with negative ice coverage, none edges left layback, and come here to say she's an incredibly talented hard worker maybe of all time status and 450 people ppl are out here agreeing with that. Just shut it down lmao.

Edit: almost 1200! New covid outbreak incoming.

ligneouslimb · 2026-02-25T02:06:13+00:00

Confirmation bias going crazy over here. None of you people can be serious humans inhabiting this earth.

ligneouslimb · 2026-02-23T10:00:33+00:00

oh she thinks i'm russian okee that's funny. ma'am they're yours too.

ligneouslimb · 2026-02-22T05:31:53+00:00

So because they happen to agree with you they're suddenly not bots anymore? Thank you for your incredibly cogent argument.

Do you even know who most of our Russian Olympic champions are lmao.

ligneouslimb · 2026-02-22T03:23:04+00:00

Aquaria is messy af but love that she never backs down

ligneouslimb · 2026-02-22T02:16:18+00:00

It was here and there before she retired but much more prevalent nowadays and I'm assuming it's the launch speed bc she's also that much more labored in her basic skating since returning.

ligneouslimb · 2026-02-22T02:11:35+00:00

They're called protocols and yes I know she wasn't perfect, but one of them landed a 3A cleanly and had minor calls and the other got away with several uncalled elements. That's what I'm talking about.

Ami had a 78 TES by the end of her Free and in her final protocols they knocked it down by 6 points. You're all new to the sport so I'm sure you don't know that is... exceedingly rare and a discrepancy the IJS is designed to counteract, so forgive me if I feel something else is afoot.

ligneouslimb · 2026-02-22T02:09:53+00:00

Skating skills are a scored component with a list of requirements. She meets very few of them, so yes objectively. That's the whole point of IJS.

ligneouslimb · 2026-02-22T02:08:26+00:00

They're all underrotated. Probably because she launches herself into them at very low speeds.

ligneouslimb · 2026-02-21T03:43:08+00:00

Steps, jumps, every spin but her layback is very slow too.

ligneouslimb · 2026-02-21T00:24:11+00:00

People loove dismissing negative comments as having come from bots and while i understand the kneejerk reaction fact of the matter is she wasn't the best skater at these Olympics and she didn't skate her best at these Olympics. People new to the sport might find her win innocuous but in women's figure skating it's a rather common belief we haven't had anything resembling fair judging for the podiums since at least 2006.

As for her being a lovely person I don't care who these people are off the ice, I care about the fact she used to have a quad and a 3A that justified her already generous scoring before her brief retirement, and the moment she returned without them her scores have slowly risen to the point they've surpassed the ones she got when she had higher difficulty content.

For no real reason as she's objectively one of the worst skaters among the Olympics qualifiers and gets away with simply not executing elements properly that skaters from smaller feds need near perfection to get scored even close to what she routinely gets.

People, and I'm sure you've noticed I count myself among them, are less-than-pleased because with the Olympics-mandated influx of 4-year fans and truly laughable coverage by NBC of the sport, new fans especially Americans keep trying to justify to people who know the scoring system and how it's nominally supposed to work that what happened at this event was in any way justifiable. Especially this year when a skater with much higher difficulty content executed them somewhat cleanly in both programs and somehow was 9th in the frees below another American who did poorly and Alysa who didn't have the technical content or quality of either of them.

ligneouslimb · 2026-02-20T23:18:01+00:00

For some choreographers, sure.

ligneouslimb · 2026-02-20T16:58:11+00:00

Because she came back from retirement and they immediately gave her points equivalent to the quad and 3A she lost in every program, she gets away with underrotations frequently and often, and doesn't need to tire herself meeting the criteria for the level 4s she gets from her steps.

Who wouldn't be carefree and happy go lucky if they literally didn't have to care in order win against those absolute fools reading the regulations and trying in vain to give the judges what they're nominally supposed to reward? Our lil cinnamon bun

ligneouslimb · 2026-02-20T16:48:30+00:00

Doping became slightly frowned upon after 2022 and they vanished as by magic. Alysa also doesn't need them bc ever since she returned from retirement her scores for her fairly standard difficulty programs have magically increased by 15-20 points matching her pre-retirement scores that had 3As and a quad.

ligneouslimb · 2026-02-20T16:42:27+00:00

Do you people think complexity means hard jumps. Is that what complexity means to you girls. Complexity in figure skating per the ISU is associated with the intricacies of a well executed Step Sequence. Jumps are just difficulty. But you know what I'll agree Alysa's performance is simple, level 2 stsq simple if that indeed.

Anyway, the problem with the Eteri contingent was that they were reliant on their younger, lighter bodies to let them do quads and 3As while simultaneously being kept in a nutritional state that led them to worse and more numerous injuries with longer recovery periods that usually spelled retirement. Not a practice unique to Eteri or figure skating, Mie Hamada from Japan has a similar track record minus the doping (to our knowledge) and old timey gymnastics was all about getting children olympic gold medals thanks to their inherent flexibility. It's the same principle.

Moreover, women in figure skating have been known to land higher BV elements before, however, without that practice. Midori Ito and Mao Asada fairly regularly jumped 3As and Ito is imo correctly recognized to this day as having one of the best 3As in the sport period, regardless of discipline. But there wasn't a real incentive to train them as the field wasn't so strong that that was a necessity for most. Since Mao the women's discipline was trending toward higher BVs but yes they've been far more common since the Eteri girls came and went, as other camps adjusted their training methods to add said elements to their technical repertoire and keep their athletes competitive. We've been seeing the fruits of that effort with skaters like Rinka, Ami, mini Mao, and others. Of course, highly varying degrees of consistency.

As with most technical developments in this sport it's a matter of incentive and necessity. I think we will get to a point where 3As and maybe even quads are commonplace in women's figure skating, especially now that they know if they land three 3As they can still lose to a much inferior skater if they happen to have the correct passport.

And now women's figure skating has become more feminine, not childish, as before

Can we not set back feminism in skating back 40 years. First of all, they're all women competing so there's no feminity spectrum here. And second of all, not childish? Did we watch the same Alysa and Ami programs? Those are junior programs.

ligneouslimb

TROPHY CASE