Reality-based figure skating from canadablue

This skating-centric post is brought to you by more of Tessa Virtue's reality-based instagram output, and her mirror image:

It wasn't a boob day that day. Not to mention, Tessa's photoshop genie decided to slice off the entire left side of her face except for her left eye. Interesting aesthetic choice. The left of her neck also doesn't work with the right side of her neck (image left and image right).

Whoever does these "right half of the image is differently aspected than the left" jobs for Tessa got sloppy with the skirt of the dress. Follow the skirt line on the left of the image up to her hand (the heel of her right hand). That line isn't going to bend behind her, but continue up. They cut it out above her hand/wrist (well, obviously, and as well as liquifying her waist and disappearing the boobs). Not to mention, if her hand is resting on her right hip, that is some set of wide hips compared to that waist and tiny boned upper body - guess Tessa is now an extreme hour glass shape when she's not a hipless wraith.

They also messed up the skirt line in the lower right. I recognize that bend at the bottom (bottom right of the image), because, when experimenting with photoshop/liquify myself, and also on freeware, that weird bend happens all the time when I'm hasty with the radius setting. Also, obviously the edge of the wall on the right is curving inward like nobody's business, but her arm and shoulder conceal the full exent of its inward trajectory. But good job with the extremely low resolution and matching Tessa's skin tone exactly to the wood tone.

Finally, besides the obvious differences between Tessa foreground and Tessa in the mirror, it's just interesting that Tessa in the foreground has skin that's practically synthetic, while the Tessa in the mirror has a back with more realistic skin texture despite being much further away.

This is going to be a very video heavy post with canadablue's annotated ice dance comparisons, but including canadablue's "feet only" videos. I LOVE feet only.

I will add gifs, I THINK, but want to get the post out first and see if having this many video embeds creates any issues.

Before getting started, and thinking that Tanith Belbin this week decided that Paul Islam lack skating skills and you can tell because Mitch yanks and pulls her through the step sequences, and how that started me considering just how ugly, in your face obnoxious, thuggish, asshole and foul the people around this sport intend to become, and how some good skaters are embracing the New Reality (not to be confused with "reality), I looked up some proverbs about lying, and found these, some of which I've read before, and some of which I think are outmoded and/or simply don't apply to the world of skating:

"If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything. ~Mark Twain".

I believe he's saying if you lie, you have to keep track in order to keep your story consistent. We know that with Scott and Tessa, this doesn't matter. Whatever they said last is the truth. Just delete whatever they said the time before that.

"Who lies for you will lie against you. ~Bosnian Proverb"

Oh, well this one is already happening, but not on the internet. (I'm not counting fan gossip and fan lying.)

"No man has a good enough memory to make a successful liar. ~Abraham Lincoln"

You don't need a good memory to be a successful liar. You don't even need to lie successfully (i.e., have people believe you). You just have to not acknowledge that you're lying and have evidence that you're lying ignored.

"Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure there is one less rascal in the world. ~Thomas Carlyle"

No, it's because people suck that Scott and Tessa have to lie. They're very protective.

"A half truth is a whole lie. ~Yiddish Proverb"

I don't think they agree. It's half and half. And shouldn't they get some credit for the true bits?

"Every lie is two lies — the lie we tell others and the lie we tell ourselves to justify it. ~Robert Brault.

Eh, I don't know how many lies people tell include lying to "ourselves". I think what people tell themselves is the truth. "It's easier." "It's more convenient." "Too much trouble to change the story now."

I'm going to start off with the feet only of Papadakis & Cizeron. Thank you canadablue



This is the short dance, where they were beaten by the Shibs. Please remember skating is meant to be scored to the weakest link.

Then PI:



The Shibs:


The Shibs: when she's got skaters whose claim to distinction is, you know, actual SKATING, Marina's choreography kicks ass. This is a fantastic, exhilerating program.

Megan Duhamel is giving back her TEB 2008 medal

https://www.facebook.com/notes/peter-murray/isu-circular-letter-no-612-interruption-of-skating-programs-urgent-need-to-amend/10151523504576186

Above is a link to the ISU circular letter addressing the urgent need to amend the rules about skaters stopping and restarting the program.

And Meagan Duhamel likes this:

Of course, Virtue and Moir. What an embarrassment. They stopped and restarted, just like you did in 2008, Meagan. They didn't win. The ISU has never given a shit when it was other skaters, right Meagan Duhamel?




Of course, one reason Tessa and Scott never had to stop their program because one of them cut a vein on the other is because Tessa and Scott actually can control their skates and their bodies. They don't go full bore on the ice despite skating like they've joined a demolition derby.

Meagan sliced Craig's hand (the program stopped), with enough blood so that her costume was bloody when they stopped. That doesn't happen a lot to other skaters. The blood flies when Meagan's on the ice, though.

Maybe the ISU should make a rule about not being able to participate in the Grand Prix series or other international competitions unless you're a good - and considerate enough - partner to keep your skate blades away from your partner's veins, arteries and other parts of their persons that have a lot of vascularity.

This issue is obviously freighted with other issues the skaters have that have nothing whatsoever to do with Virtue Moir stopping, but has to do with other stuff about Virtue Moir. They're hiding behind this issue because they don't want to address what's really bugging them and I don't just mean the sham, but you know, being special snowflakes in general.

With Duhamel, I wonder if it's being a pair girl who waited for years to afford a ticket for her dad to see her compete internationally, while meanwhile Jessica Dube gets both parents at TEB and her parents and a brother at Worlds in Nice through no financial effort of her own or her family's. Even if the freight was paid by the Virtue Moir families, that has got to rankle, particularly when one factors in the extra and gratuitous publicity Skate Canada gave Jessica even when her partnership with Bryce was at an end. If you see yourself as a hard luck case who scraped and scrambled and trained to get where you are, and you see someone else sailing through hardly trying in part because of favors they're doing another set of skaters, it could rankle. Even if, upon analysis, it's not a really fair or rational resentment.

What's embarrassing?  They weren't dinged enough to be off the podium? They won the fucking short dance. Duhamel/Buntin weren't dinged enough to be off the podium. Zhang & Zhang weren't dinged enough to move Shen & Zhao up to silver.  Does Meagan think splattering gore on the rink is not embarrassing, but a debilitating cramp is? What's her hierarchy of acceptable health or injury issues?

Not for nothing, I also think the ISU should make a rule about celebrating on the ice before the program is over - another habit of Duhamel's - but nobody seems to find that as embarrassing as finishing with a silver medal at a 4CCs where they won the short dance and are the defending champion.

Maybe Duhamel thinks that unless you make a big histrionic show of it, it's not fair.

I don't think Virtue Moir faked it in 2013, but I think they did in 2011. And I still want to know - what's it to YOU, Meagan Duhamel? Don't hide behind the embarrassment to our sport bullshit when the real embarrassment to ice dance is how it's scored.

What actually is your problem? What did they gain by faking it in 2013, if you think they faked it in 2013?

I think someone like Patrick Ryan, who obviously is unhappy VM weren't dinged off the podium, should count his blessings for the scores D/W receive and didn't earn according to the criteria in the CoP. The hypocrisy is incredible.