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“i’m gonna start the video on Sheri - April 12, 2024 - clearly we’re in creative zone - CPom”

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I think VM definitely did shipbait for all the years they competed senior. It was the persona Marina gave them. They leaned into their chemistry partially because they were launched into the stratosphere with it with Mahler and even Umbrellas, partially because by 2013-2014 it was one area that DW couldn’t compete with them on, and partially because of their long history together.

It seemed at the time that Scott was kind of talked into the show. Tessa was more keen because she had aspirations of using their skating fame to get endorsements and make a living as a celebrity before social media influencing was an option.

As for the show, Scott seemed to be pretty adamant that he wasn’t going to pretend to date Tessa and was pretty open about dating Cassandra. Tessa seemed to be more willing to play ball — as a people pleaser and as someone who wanted to get something out of the tv show.

But I think their relationship was complicated. Not necessarily because they crossed any lines but because they didn’t. In a nutshell, Tessa seemed to have a bit of insecurity about where she fit into Scott’s life outside skating whereas Scott seemed to believe that they had their connection but would naturally go in different directions. But we could go on for years analyzing all of that.

i do think Marina gave them romantic programs before it was appropriate, and that she and they leaned into that dynamic a lot as they got older. but shipbaiting implies they were teasing the romantic possibilities of their personal relationship for gain, and i don't think they did that in their early years

as teens, there were periods when they had more chemistry than they knew what to do with. coupled with the amount of time they spent together and how much they relied on each other, it seems confusing to navigate. the last thing you'd want would be to get a bunch of intrusive questions about it. so i would separate portraying romantic stories on the ice vs their awareness of selling that off the ice as part of their draw as a team. i just don't see them doing that until later

after the 2010 Olympics, when they're asked the relationship question, they pretty straightforwardly answer no. it's when they weren't winning or in the comeback when they needed every advantage that they got ambiguous in their answers - later in the Sochi quad and leading into PYC

this is going to come up later in the show, but i think they both had fear and insecurity about what was going to happen to their relationship after they finished skating, and i don't think it was just Tessa who was afraid the other wouldn't have a place for them in their life. but for some reason, these two don't seem to talk to the other about their fears when it counts, maybe they don't communicate well about feelings. there have been times in interviews when they each seem surprised to hear something about the other that they would have known if they were talking to each other about this stuff

personally, i don't think any of this makes sense if there were no lines crossed. platonic business partners don't get weird like this. friendship, skating partnership is more straightforward. even relationships that have been processed and moved past are more straightforward

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Kaitlin Hawayek & Jean-Luc Baker at the 2024 Nightingales on Ice show in Kearns, Utah on April 27

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Tessa and Scott: episode 2

episode 1 made a thing of Marina going to Champs Camp with Meryl and Charlie - is she giving equal time to both teams? episode 2 makes it clear she shows up for VM's High Performance Camp assessments, so while it turns out to be true that she didn't support VM equally, this isn't an example of it, producers🙃

ep. 2 focuses on HPC - how nervous Tessa is is painful to see. this is where she calls Kate with tears and throws up after their FD

"i really internalize things, just assume that i'm a terrible skater, a bad person" - on the one hand 🥺 but also, huh? i know feelings like this aren't logical, but i'm curious what being a bad person means to her? sometimes ppl think "i'm a perfectionist" "i'm so hard on myself" are a badge of honor and a way to drive yourself, but it feels like a harsh way to do it and seems to lead her to spiral

then there's the cringe moment when Ryan Pyette, the London Free Press reporter who's been covering VM since they were little kids, asks Scott, "did you get lean? you look less bulky" it's not really better seeing a guy get asked questions about his body and appearance in an intrusive way

then Tessa, plaintively - "i wish people would ask me that. all i hear is did you put on muscle? are you bulking up? no!" thankfully Scott answers, "idiots. let's eat"

but in the next scene - he's having a cheeseburger, salad, ginger ale, orange juice. she's having a skinless grilled chicken breast, a couple tomato slices and some pasta shells with not much on them in small portions 😢

then after HPC, she goes to TIFF with Chiddy (and has a moment exchanging numbers and talking about hanging out with Jian Ghomeshi, who went on trial for sexual assault the next year - god i hope this was the last time she saw him💀)

Scott goes home rather than staying, and Tessa says, "i think it was just one of those nights where he needed to get home and relax and get away from the whole skating world and maybe even me" - whyy does she think this way 😭 after the pressure of HPC and media day, instead of walking a red carpet at a film festival, getting his picture taken and socializing, he went home for the weekend. sounds normal and understandable. he says see you Monday in Canton, so they’re back on the ice bright and early, probs - i mean, doesn't she want in part to go home and recover? TIFF is more her scene than his, and they'd been to it together before:

YSL after party at TIFF in 2010 (someone pls fix his shirt 😅)

but oof, producers, not subtle - Tessa: "hopefully when we're done skating competitively i'll have more time to devote to a real relationship" - cut to:

i wonder how they pitched this to him - look out the window pensively and drink your coffee 💀this show was pretty rude to his gf

again, i’d take more footage of actual skating and feedback at HPC. i think these producers were just kind of bad at this lol VM gave them plenty of 🤔moments without resorting to this 🫠

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2024 Washington Picken Solo Ice Dance International, April 26-27, 2024 Reston Virginia

this was an ISU competition with ISU judges and tech panel. Emmy's RD was to Cyndi Lauper All Through the Night and Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, and she wore her RD dress from this season. her FD was Mozart Fantasia in d minor. she won 🥈, less than a point behind Lucas Appel, who was first. idk much about solo dance, but he seems to be one of two solo dancers whose name you see a lot, the other being Brooke Tufts, who wasn't in this event

they do Edge Elements (Ee on the protocol) in place of lifts - these can be spread eagles, hydroblades, Ina Bauers, spirals - you get 5.45 points in BV for a level 4

i love that there's no separate women and men's categories - everyone competes together ❤️

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Jordyn Lewis moving to Montreal to skate synchro

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Re: the "one year ago" carnival -- Tessa and Scott performed at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto in summer 2012 (there are still videos on YouTube from it), so it's probably supposed to have been filmed then.

ohh interesting - somehow i never registered that CNE is in Toronto lol but "supposed to" - do you mean that footage isn't from 2012?

i guess either way, i have questions - if it's from August 2012, they knew a year prior that they'd do the reality show? before Carmen season

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Tessa and Scott episode 1 (pt 1 pt 2) sorry i'm not giving any useful context if you've never seen it - it's a good (bad lol) piece of VM history the opening at the carnival in Toronto says "one year ago" - it looks like warm weather, but the show premiered Jan 2, 2014, so when did they film that?

the first performance of DALD 🥺 (seriously, who has those hard drives with the footage lol). interesting to see part of the no touch here compared to the legendary one from Sochi

Marina saying "love you love you a lot" to them when she's about to stab them in the back 💀

Jean-Marc Généreux, the dance/connection coach - Scott says they've been working with him since 2002. VM would have been 12/13 and 14/15 yo they're supposed to be playing out a romantic storyline in the SD: T: right away he (Jean-Marc) saw there was something missing J: so, i want you to look at this guy like he's uh T: like he's David Beckham? J: uhh maybe, or a piece of meat, like a good - like filet mignon - and you'd really like to have a bite (why does she do this? if it was reversed, and Jean-Marc said to Scott, look at her like you think she's attractive, and he said, oh, like she's Jennifer Lopez? that would be rude and invalidating)

i'd forgotten how strange it is, the way they talk about each other -

S: "Tessa and i have a -- *very* -- complex relationship" (arching eyebrow, significant look) ok, how 😅

T: "sometimes we are best friends, sometimes we're just business partners, there's an ebb and a flow to our relationship that is ongoing" -- spending more and less time together is normal, but does your status as best friends change so much? do your friendships work like this? these two were working so closely together, but they'd grow apart enough that she'd call it being "just business partners"? that feels off. from other stuff they've said, it feels more like there were reasons one would hold the other at arm's length and that they didn't talk these things out

Scott seems very inside himself and high key conscious of the camera. very little of the lighter side of him in this show. Tessa also very conscious of the camera but more wanting to do a good job - like watching someone inexperienced acting in a high school play - a little stilted. these producers didn't know what to do with them to get them to be more natural. too bad they wanted to make a reality show and didn't focus more on the skating and the training and let their personalities show in the process

S: VO "after this season, our lives are going to be totally different" T: "what are you going to miss the most" S: "i'll miss - i'm going to miss the structure. 5 o'clock in the mornings" T: "yeah 😐" lol not going to be baited into saying anything personal for national tv. either he thought it was going to be a different kind of show or was talked into it and never bought in. i wonder what the two of them really think of this now

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tw:

thank you for this info. both of these are very much worth the time. oooof. the W5 documentary - my heart hurts for those girls and women. it's harrowing even to read the transcript. i started watching and had to stop and read the rest. completely devastating. and at the same time infuriating

the Future of Figure Skating podcast - the process in Canada very much sounds like it shields the institutions and therefore the abusers during investigation. Amelia Cline says they've found that going outside the systems in place is often the most effective route. which is damning about the system. Abby Spadafora says complaints often aren't taken seriously, or can be kicked around from Office of Sport Integrity Commissioner (OSIC) to the National or provincial sporting organization. they've had cases where the person reporting the abuse was put in the same room with their abuser to recount their complaint. horrific stuff. independent investigators who have conflicts of interest or are otherwise unsuited to the task, the list goes on

not only is the process itself and the timeline not made clear by OSIC to the parties involved, OSIC has strict confidentiality clauses that keep people from speaking while the process is ongoing. once a case is brought, there might be news stories in the beginning, but then there's silence because of this. no further bad press for the abuser or the institutions involved. and the victims can't speak about their own experiences for fear that it will be used against them in the case. they're saying that if you were involved in a criminal case, you'd have more right to speak than in these OSIC cases. [so this could be why we haven't heard more in the Soerensen case]

they said the solution is to treat these like any other human rights issues - in any other circumstance, it wouldn't be this hard to fire and remove adults abusing children. that the process needs to be consistent and more transparent and public. that there needs to be a top down, bottom up reassessment of the entire system so it can be figured out where and how it's broken. they started out investigating gymnastics and found the same stories in so many other sports - that it's an issue in all sport

OSIC was modeled after the US Center for Safe Sport which is a system they have no confidence in. this is an in depth discussion where they bring up so many facets - like how it would be important for role models and more of the public to speak up, to say they believe survivors - and not just the famous ones - when these survivors risk so much in speaking out

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many singles skaters announcing their program music and choreographers - where are the dancers? 🤔 i guess many of them get in house choreo so we don't get to hear from them until much later 😢

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"i don't think she realizes she keeps me alive" Is that really the quote? Because I always heard it as “I don’t think she realizes she keeps me in line.”

VO: “their 17 yr rls will be tested- there will be tears, tension, and tenderness- “

and that’s where they put the “I don’t think she realizes she keeps me - “ quote

“in line” doesn’t go with 'tenderness.' though who knows. i don’t hear an N sound to make it “in” but i also don’t hear a clear V or N at the end either - it sounds more like “a- lie” than anything. i asked my friend from Ontario bc she's much more familiar with the accent than i am, and she hears "a-lie" too. but that's not a word 😅 so that's why i'm more inclined to think it's 'alive' than 'in line'

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i have some down time so rewatching the VM reality show - haven't seen this in a while, and lol what's jumping out now -

episode 1: VO: to succeed, they'll need to build on their unique, indefinable connection with each other

Scott: the questions that we always get - are we dating, are we together, it's hard to explain

🤦🏻‍♀️ how is it hard? if it's no (since you clearly had a gf then) then just say no. that's one syllable lol the only other answers are, it's not clearly no, or you're shipbaiting 😂 (and of course there's the quote they never put in context: "i don't think she realizes she keeps me alive")

the first competition they show is in Laval, before they go to High Performance Camp, and it isn't listed in skating scores or on wiki - but luckily there was a record of it -- it's Championnats d'Ete, which was held August 8-13, 2013. they scored 76.51 in their short dance and withdrew before the FD

every time i see this show, it's not the show itself i think about most, it's all the footage that didn't get used - everything that was filmed that we never saw. and the skating is a huge part of that. this performance is nowhere that i can find except the snippets in the episode. so the crew sat there with their fancy cameras, filmed the whole thing, and it's sitting somewhere on a hard drive 😭

they say they were still choreographing (in August) - connections, transitions, that the lifts weren't comfortable. that's late for most teams to still be making programs, especially in an Olympic year? but they probably toured that year after Worlds, and idk what state her legs were in, if they needed a decent sized break after the season for recovery. he's huffing and puffing and saying he's disappointed in himself how exhausted he was after the SD

the scoring system was kinda different, how each program component is weighted differently. but 10s for a program they're saying is unfinished and feeling foreign to them-- they were 22 pts ahead of 2nd place in the SD. they show a medal ceremony, but it must be small medals? bc they didn't skate the 2nd day

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as part of AAPI Heritage month in May, Mattel has made a Kristi Yamaguchi Barbie

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lol someone was watching PYC and taking notes

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2025 US Nationals will be in Wichita, Kansas, and 2024 Skate America will be back in Allen, Texas like is was in 2023

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👀 inchresting

she's retired, but he's not, and she's staying at IAM. so is he looking for a new partner to train with there? to skate for which country? he has Japanese citizenship but was born in Montana and has previously competed for South Korea and Norway. he and his previous 2 partners trained with Igor, he and Misato previously trained with Barbara Fusar-Poli before IAM

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Marjorie's fundraiser to benefit Fondation Autiste et Majeur 💜💙💗