Being an ice skater means never having to apologise for cosplay

[nineveh_uk]

I'm still waiting for the Nirvana in Fire ice skating routine, but all due respect to Wang Shiyue and Liu Xinyu, multiple Chinese national champions in ice dance, for following in the proud footsteps of Evgenia Medvedeva and no doubt many other professional skating cosplayers and doing their last season's gala exhibition programme to the soundtrack for The Untamed.

Here at the GPF Cup of China:

Watch on YouTube

(The above is geoblocked in some regions, this is the same performance.)

Also at Four Continents, at both of which competitions they came fourth. Tragically, I can't find it on British Eurosport last year, and so can only imagine what John and Megan made of it.

Comments

[azdak]

Is it because of The Untamed that he's wearing that headband?

[nineveh_uk]

It is indeed.

[azdak]

Ah! That link also answers my question about which is which! Thank you!

[nineveh_uk]

To put it in fandom terms, Wei Wuxian is, unquestionably, The Girl.

[caulkhead]

My skating wardrobe consists of variations on black leggings and black tops. Presumably I am cosplaying one of the unsuccessful ninjas (not even the good ones; the ones that made up the first wave in the fic).

[nineveh_uk]

You could be cosplaying a successful ninja in disguise. Or the sensible one who took one look at the target and backed out.

[caulkhead]

Not the way I skate, but I appreciate the thought!

[nineveh_uk]

It's a very good disguise!

[petra]

Thank you for taking the time to hunt down multiple versions, as the one you had embedded is region-locked. I really enjoyed this.

WWX is definitely The Girl. Comes of all that yin energy.

[nineveh_uk]

Sorry about that! The person who put it up said that it might be locked in some countries, but not which. Ah! In searching for an image in case you couldn't even see that (the embedded vid has a more WWX skirt plus the headband), this one came up. Might be worth a try: https://youtu.be/y67SBTTjt0U Ed. And bows at the end.

[shewhostaples]

Alas! I am always here for John and Megan's opinions.

[nineveh_uk]

Commentator 2: This is a new programme from Chinese national champions Wang Shiyue and Liu Xinyu, skating to music from the web series 'The Untamed'. Do you know know anything about the show, Megan?

Commentator 1: It's Chinese? I think it's on Netflix? And this is ice dance, so it's probably a romance. OK, I've got nothing.

Commentator 2: Well, the crowd certainly recognises those costumes and the skaters are having fun. It's a charming routine, though I kind of think it might mean more if we knew anything about the show, right?

[TECHS: It's VERY GAY!]

Commentator 1: I'll watch it before Four Continents. I want to know why she's playing an evil flute and why the headband.

Commentator 2: Is that someone in the audience screaming now?

[shewhostaples]

Hee! Of course the techs know!

[mrs_redboots]

I am so missing the skating competitions this year - and last, too. The Adult ISU will now happen in November, if at all.... but as no adults have been able to train in this country for quite a long time, I wonder how many entries there will actually be. I see they've lopped 2 days off the competition!

[caulkhead]

I seem to have agreed to go to Montpellier for Worlds next year - a friend suggested that we go, and since I swore in the first lockdown that I'd never turn down an interesting invitation again...

[mrs_redboots]

Hmmm.... Montpellier is a very nice place (tempted, tempted!). We shall see.

[nineveh_uk]

Good decision! There's nothing like a global pandemic for making one reflect on lost opportunities.

Thank goodness the 2021 Worlds are in Stockholm. Not that I have any great confidence it will happen, but the Swedish approach seems more likely to allow people into the country than if it were being held in most other places!

[nineveh_uk]

I really feel for skaters as competitors in a sport with a time limit for whom 2022 would have been 'their' Olympics and whose training and potentially opportunity to go at all has been so mucked up by it all.