do you have any recs for good skates to watch from this season so far?

elsa i am so sorry you asked. here we go

(bolded skaters are going to the gpf)

(all links require a vpn bc isu youtube hates usa; rec using opera browser's built in free vpn)

i mainly follow singles, so i'll mostly stick with those, but for pairs stellato-dudek/deschamps are absolute breakouts featuring queen deanna who is the oldest gp medalist and oldest gp gold medalist !!! stan deanna. i rec watching their skate america skates, particularly their short. i wept

ALSO for dance by far my favorite thing i've seen is demougeot/le mercier's weird ass sad mime ex which hits EVERY time.

ANYWAY. to the shit i actually care about deeply

WOMEN

rika kihira's titanic free from sci: the nhk one was probably better technically but i saw this one in person in the front row and wept the entire time. outstanding vibes. beautiful skating.

kaori sakamoto's sia free from skam: speaking of things i saw live from the second row and wept through. that's MY world champion

mai mihara's espoo short and also her sheffield free: 30 point grand prix queen enough said

yelim kim's short and free from nhk: won nhk against an absolutely stacked lineup of women. has one of the most beautiful ina bauers in existence

honorable mentions that i'm not going to find the links for: every single thing gracie gold did at skam. listen to the audience reactions for her!!! absolutely not a dry eye in the house. also amber glenn did incredible at skam, if you're into her. also faves rinka watanabe at sci and loena hendrickx at angers to round out the gpf lineup. (uhhhh. minus isabeau who is talented but i don't care for as a skater atm)

MEN

oh god

shoma uno's nhk free and exhibition: this tiny man owns my entire ass. i also saw both of these skates live and my brain turned to mush and i made noises no human should ever make but i think the nhk ones are better. his short also fucks but he keeps screwing it up lmao. these are some of my favorite programs of all time tbh

roman sadovsky's nebelhorn trophy short: romsky is my goated flop worstie parasocial boyfriend and this program fucks. what if he could ever pull off a free skate.

adam siao him fa's short program from angers: i mean. my god. he did that

kao miura's short program from skam: had no expectations from this kid and then he comes out and drops a 94 point sp in front of us. TWO WEEKS IN A ROW. IN FRONT OF MY EYES. this program is fucking incredible except for the slowest cannonball spin of all time. his beauty and the beast free is also sooo fun but it WILL get stuck in your head and he keeps having bad falls on the first jump

kazuki tomono's miyavi ex: king of gala skates strikes again. pleaaaase learn how to jump for the actual competitions

deniss vasiljevs's sheffield free and sci ex: does the free hit as well without knowing how hard he flopped it during sci? idk and idc. his englishman in new york sp is also worth a watch. we love u deniss. anyway the sci ex happened in front of me and stopped my brain function for like half an hour

junhwan cha's nhk free and skam short: the second we saw jun skate in person we dedicated our lives to seeing him skate again. please know that a good portion of that intensely high pitched screaming from skam is me and kim and lee anne. it was his BIRTHDAY

keegan messing's free at sci: now, this one is simply for the vibes. it was his last ever skate canada and the vibes during this event were terrible. everyone was flopping. energy was low. then keegs saved us and we all stomped and yelled and cried

kevin aymoz's short in espoo: he is sooooooo good and soooooo fun. his free is also good and hilarious bc it's a song of achilles program set to gladiator. i'm not kidding

ilia malinin's free at skam: so, listen. i am not an ilia girlie but he DID land a 4a 15 feet from us and it WAS impressive and i did scream about it, and since he is shoma's main competition at the gpf this year i feel that i should link this

unfortunately i only really care about 2 of the men in the gpf this year and the rest of my faves flopped bad enough at least once to keep them out of the running.

anyway yeah if anyone else wants to watch some figure skating. watch these ones

As a non-American whose only experience of jeopardy are screencaps from tumblr and three (3) SNL clips, I don't understand jeopardy at all like? How do you win? You bzz bzz a statement and give another statement and they go wweee like wtf was rhat what's going on what i don't what huh what?

okay please understand i am not making fun of you but good lord i’ve been watching jeopardy since i was about two because my grandma used to watch it religiously and she’d babysit me and my whole family it was like. a bonding time in my youth so seeing someone who thinks this is what it is is like. a bit of a trip. anyway i am going to attempt to explain something that is ingrained into my psyche since childhood for the nonamericans who Don’t Get It please stand by sorry if this is confusing

okay, based on this post i think your biggest point of confusion is actually how the question is answered. what they do is give you a statement and you have to give the answer in the form of a question, as opposed to other trivia shows where you just. answer the question. so think of it this way: if the clue they give you is something like (and i’m giving an answer i think a lot of people will be able to follow) “this pop star, who previously played hannah montana on a disney channel show, reached number one in 2013 with her hit wrecking ball.” the contestant would buzz in and answer “who is miley cyrus?” in order to answer correctly. like, you’re basically answering the question in reverse, which sounds confusing, but you get used to it.

there’s two rounds, jeopardy and double jeopardy (where the clues are worth double the points), and each round has *checks notes because somehow this still confuses me* six categories of five questions each, which can be literally anything. the questions go up in value (in the first round they’re worth $200-1000 each, going up by $200 intervals. in double jeopardy the amounts are doubled), and typically the lower value questions are easier and the high value questions are harder. if you answer it correctly the value of the question is added to your score. if you answer it incorrectly, it’s deducted. the only confusing bit here is that there’s one or two daily doubles (one in the first round, two in the second). if you answer a question correctly, you get to pick the next question that’s read, and if it’s a daily double you don’t have to compete against anyone (there’s usually three people who buzz in if they know the answer. in daily doubles it’s one person who can answer on their own, and they have a bit longer to think about the answer. also, they tend to be a bit more challenging, but that’s not always the case), and you can choose how much money you wager. if it’s a category you know nothing about you can bet nothing, if you think you’ll know the answer you can bet all of the money you’ve accumulated.

at the end of the two rounds, there’s final jeopardy, where the contestants all have to answer one question. they’re given a category and they make a wager based on how much money they’ve accumulated and if they think they know enough about the category. then the question is read and they have.....30 seconds?......to write down their answer. (also the final jeopardy music is iconic if an american asks you a question and it takes you a minute to answer and they start going da da daa da da da da daaaa it’s an inside joke with the whole country) if they get it wrong their wager is deducted from their score, if it’s right it’s added to their score. the player who at the end of all that has the highest score wins and is awarded however much money they won during the game and the opportunity to play again the next day (the other two players are given $2,000 if they came in second place or $1,000 if they came in third).

alright, that’s basically gameplay, or at least how i can explain it to the best of my ability, but i feel like also using this space to like. explain WHY it’s so universal here. so like, jeopardy is one of those shows that’s been running forever, on basic cable. i’m. not completely sure how it is in the rest of the world but we have like, pbs, which is a public nonprofit channel probably most similar to the bbc, but then we have like four or five for-profit channels that tend to be local broadcasts that you can usually pick up on antennas and may not even have to pay for, as opposed to cable packages which you can’t do that with. jeopardy airs on those local channels, so even if you didn’t have cable you probably have access to it. on top of that, it airs every weekday, usually at 7 or 7:30 (paired with wheel of fortune, which is another show that i think is more widely adapted and also i don’t want to get into here), which means it tends to be in the middle of local news and prime time shows that air nationally. so like, culturally, even if you don’t watch it regularly, it’s at sort of a weird time where everyone is usually home but not a whole lot is on, particularly on local channels, so you’ve probably at least caught the occasional episode. also, the show has been on since the 80s (and i think a bit before, but they kind of revamped it and the format hasn’t changed significantly since then, but i digress) and the host (who always struck me as a really good guy btw) just died, so it kind of feels like the end of an era. like i would use my one valid parasocial relationship card on mr trebek because he often ate dinner with the fam, and i think a lot of americans feel that way (even though the dude was actually canadian). so anyway, that’s the quick and dirty overview of jeopardy. it’s a good time