Come to think of it, it really is insane that my entire country is burning alive and literally no one in the rest of the world cares. Thousands of Indians are dying every day from the heat, it's 45+ degrees in multiple areas, the government couldn't give two fucks, we're getting severe warnings and red alerts, and not a soul outside of South Asia is speaking about it because why would you ever care about brown people
USA folks, that is a consistent temperature range hitting 113°. Death Valley temperatures. In Banda, it hovered between 116°-118° (47°-48° C) for a week straight.
This has been happening all month with little to no international media attention. Here are a few organizations you can check out for resources or to support:
Sometimes I think about how Rocky, having spent 46 years alone in space, was fully prepared to befriend whatever flying monkey had made it into space if it meant not being alone anymore. Hence:
[image ID: a screenshot of the notes on this post, featuring several people indicating they want to know more. End ID.]
OKAY SO. You know how we talk about how one way fast fashion has made itself “necessary” is that the clothing looks like shit and feels horrible after just a few washes?
Let. Me. Tell. You. Something.
Laundry stripping is a process where you load your laundry into a tub or bin (I’ve been using my bathtub) with warm water, half a cup of borax, half a cup of washing soda, and half a cup of laundry soap (not detergent, SOAP, there’s a chemical difference). Leave it there for at least eight hours. I’ve been going for 12-24.
What you will come back to is a tub full of nearly-opaque black-gray-brown water that absolutely REEKS. This is normal. You are looking at (and smelling) hard water buildup, body sweat and oils that were embedded in the fabric, dead skin, and just regular grime.
Wring out your clothes. Throw them in the washer. (I like to do a spin-only cycle before going any further, because I have one of those washers that determines by weight how much water any given load needs.) Wash as usual.
You will notice I didn’t suggest any further pretreatment, and that’s because 1) you don’t want to layer too many chemicals on top of each other but also 2) you may not even need it.
When your clothes come out, check each one as it goes into the dryer, and if anything else s still stained, set it aside to run again with a regular pretreatment. One of the sweaters I did this with apparently did need a second treatment…to deal with what appears to have possibly been a hot chocolate stain that was previously invisible due to “well, it’s old” dinginess. I was planning to throw this sweater out. It looks almost new now. I need to wash it one more time for the probably-a-hot-chocolate stain, and then it needs to have the hem weighted to block it and bring it back to evenness, but dude. I wear my clothes to rags and I thought this thing was unfixable. “I need to reshape it” is nothing.
Remove clothes from dryer when done. Fucking MARVEL at the colors and how good the fabric feels. Give them a smell. Get righteously and royally angry that you can rejuvenate this stuff so easily, with a process that does take awhile but is 90% hands-off, but we’ve been trained to believe it’s all got to be binned once a year because discoloration and gross fabric is “normal wear and tear” and can’t be fixed.
It’s utterly unreal! I just pulled a seven-year-old work undershirt out of the dryer and this thing looks NEW!! It FEELS almost new!!! One of the shirts I hung up from the last load is older than some of the people on this site and it went from “I keep this to wear on laundry day, for sentimental reasons” to “I could actually wear this out of the house, it looks old but respectable”! The pajama bottoms I’m wearing were from Goodwill and they have BRIGHT YELLOW in them! I thought it was goldenrod!!
I do not know how often you’re supposed to do this (doing it every time can strip the dye out of your clothes, not to mention it’s way too much work to do every time), but once or twice per season seems respectable. I don’t wear white, so I can’t test the “it will make whites look almost-new as well” claim, but I’ve seen a lot of people on the cleaning subreddit attest that it works.
Just remember: WASHING soda. Not baking soda. I tried baking soda and a little bit happened, but not a lot.
Go forth. Rejuvenate your clothing. Strip your laundry.
“I’m on the cover of the f***ing game!” The official “MLH Anthem” from Heated Rivalry has been released! Composed by @anthonywallace, the anthem was born from a need for an authentic hockey theme for the official MLH video game, featured in Episode 6.
i've been LOLing about ilya's incomprehensible, did you use google translate english with a friend for a while, it made me want to post about it
before i get to typical mistakes russians make, i want to speculate on where and how ilya studied english.
feel free to hop on and correct me whenever!
english in russian schools
2008, ilya's in Saskatchewan, he is 17 yo. meaning, he started school in 1996-ish and by 2008 he has already graduated.
as all russians at that time he probably started learning english early on at school. typical lessons consisted of heavy focus on grammar, reading out loud and translating textbook passages sentence by sentence, and doing tests. he also had to memorize and give some weird ass speeches about "London is the capital of Great Britain" (tw).
so, probably, not too much immersion, no colloquial speech, limited exposure to AmE, limited listening practice.
he might have had a tutor and he might have traveled abroad with his family and class/hockey team, but i don't think he was encouraged to really focus on english. he might have picked up some vocabulary from movies and porn (question mark but not really)
that means that by the end of school ilya probably has some very basic english vocabulary, can't form long sentences, doesn't really know linking words, collocations, phrasal verbs let alone idioms, and relies heavily on translating from russian to english directly (relatable)
this brings us to the list of english stuff russians usually struggle with
articles
we don't have them, we don't get them, the concept is very foreign. let alone we barely can pronounce the, so no motivation to use them
russians might:
forget the articles: I'm coming to cottage for summer.
use a instead of an, a instead of the and vise versa
forget some specific use cases (geographical, proper names, etc): I'm visiting Hollanovs instead of the Hollanovs
throw them randomly when we suddenly remember they exist: A water is cold, Shane, now gimme kiss!
verb stuff
to be, do/does, irregular verbs
ilya's pattern of skipping subject is endearing but not very convincing to me. we memorize i am, you are, he/she/it is early on and get corrected about it for years at school, so, i believe ilya knows there should be something before “is good” =)
typical mistakes we might make include:
using do/have instead of does/has, forgetting -s:
Shane have good mouth
adding -ed instead of changing the verb:
I bringed puppy home and called her Anya
tences
russian language only have past, present and future tences with no subdivision on simple, continuous, perfect, perfect continuous. all these concepts are confusing and take a long time to wrap our heads around (present perfect, i'm looking at you!)
hence, the mistakes:
using present simple instead of present continuous:
I suck Shane off while he talks with Hayden instead I'm sucking Shane off while he is talking to Hayden
forgetting to be in present continuous:
I making myself tuna melt, i can make you too.
using past simple instead of present perfect:
I never was in Boston before.
(sidenote: ilya's line from TLG "Is good. She has been helpful" made me laugh for this particular reason. proud of my babyboy nailing present perfect (i myself not sure if it's necessary here))
not changing word order in questions:
You want to come while in Boston? instead of Do you want to come...?
(occasionally) answering I do, I don't, I am no matter the tense of the question:
- Did you bring anyone with you? - I don't.
- Have you ever been with a man? - I do / I am.
(probably) saying will not instead of won't.
i just get the feeling that this sacred knowledge wasn't taught properly back then.
modal verbs, phrasal verbs, prepositional verbs and particles (i googled all those words)
yet another thing we don't have in russian. i was really impressed when ilya said glasses back on instead of glasses back or put your glasses again
so, mistakes:
forgetting or misusing particles:
Let's listen to "All the things she said" for the 100th time
Happy to tell to your mom / say to your mom that we are lovers.
same with modals (typically adding to instead of omitting it):
We must to make Montreal go home to cry!
using regular words instead of phrasal verbs:
I googled the word "compatible" / I looked it at dictionary.
forgetting particles at the end of the sentence
Is Rose Landry I'm worring about
verbs + doing / to do
so, gerund, we don't know her.
verb + infinitive, on the other hand, is quite common in russian, so i would expect my comrads to overuse verb + to do especially in the long sentences:
I could not stop to stare (instead of staring) at your mouth, I thought you might notice it.
that was a long list but it's nearly not enough. these are also rookie mistakes, and i believe moving to Boston healed them quickly. but some patterns might linger, i guess.
given all that, ilya's english is good. is very smart boy. is learn fast and make everyone proud.
p.s. this whole thing can be a representation of mistakes a russian makes when she runs her mouth on learning english, tbh.
so ilya likes to mess with shane calling him some random russian petnames, right? no one asked but i have opinions and also work to do but unrelated
first, the long game ones:
moya gazonokosilka (lawn mower) - cursed, pretend it never happened. too random, doesn't sound fun or cute in russian, can't imagine russians saying that to their lovers
moy pomidor (tomato) - actually very cute, love it. shane blushes a lot (ilya is not capable of that for geopolitical reasons) so moy pomidor works perfectly. moy pomidorchik (diminutive) would be even cuter
moy lyubimiy (my love) - works good but skip moy, just lyubimiy
now some of my ideas. not suggesting that ilya would call shane that but i would:
shanezhka (spelling?) (diminutive for a шаньга - fluffy sweet cottage cheese bun) - sounds very close to shane's name and also has this tender suffix at the end that is just perfect for russian ears. why it's perfect? because this nezh (неж) thing at the end is the same as in the word tenderness/genleness (нежность), like hello? also shane is a sweet bun, has sweet buns and needs sweet buns (fuck you, microbiotic diet)
gagarochka (diminutive for a loon) - sounds fun and cute in russian
dushnila (stuffy person i guess?) - just a very natural and quite endearing way to call your boring husband when he is schooling you about that damn one (1) cigarette again
also dushnila sounds very close to dusha (soul), and calling your loved ones moya dusha (my soulmate?) is some deep russian shit. i can totally see ilya messing with shane switching between moy dushnila and moya dusha to check how his russian lessons are going, bonjour
ulitka or ulitochka (snail) - just how we call slow people, and shane is famously a very slow skater. also sounds cute and tender in russian
cursed but zhopa, zhopka (ass) - no jokes, very common petname. playful, fun, rolls off the tongue and has that you are an asshole love you so much undertone
bath time with small dog: so many options, would sir prefer the laundry sink (a cosier approach) or would sir be more comfortable in the bath tub (large for sir’s size, but we can make it work). what temperature would the gentleman prefer?
bath time with big dog: hose and a hot day, best i can do champ
At this point nothing can surprise me anymore. All of Canada's tourism agencies are actively referencing Heated Rivalry. The Canadian Space Agency is referencing Heated Rivalry. Every brand related and unrelated to the show is referencing Heated Rivalry. The fucking Guggenheim museum is making cottage references. Meanwhile the show's stars are presenting at the Golden Globes. Now they're on the catwalk of Milan Fashion Week. Now they're torchbearers in the goddamn Olympics. This show has not just escaped containment, it's completely obliterated all semblance of it. It's everywhere. It's inescapable. God bless the gay hockey show.
On Connor Storrie’s excellent Russian in HR (from a linguist)
Ok it’s time to put my Russian and linguistics (and Slavic linguistics) degrees to work and tell you why Connor Storrie’s Russian and accent work in this show is so freaking good. (Links added for those who want more info about stuff.) Hey other linguists — I’m playing fast and loose with notation here, ok, we’re not doing phonemes and IPA.
We’re going to go over overall mouth shape, palatalization, lack of aspiration, vowel reduction, and intonation with examples from Ilya’s dialogue! I’m going to talk about this from the perspective of an English speaker learning Russian since that’s what Connor (and I) did. Here we go.
1. Overall mouth shape
Every language has what you could think of as its own neutral or resting mouth position (aka, basis of articulation). One way to think of this is what the “I’m thinking” noise is — in English it’s uhh, in Spanish it’s often ehh. In Russian it’s mmm or ehhh or ahhh. The other thing is that the mouth typically does not open as much vertically when speaking Russian as when speaking English, but rather wider (horizontally).
Connor is doing a good job of maintaining a more Russian resting position (and I have a theory that this is one of the reasons his face looks so different as Ilya).
You can see Connor doing this when he says “ehh no” to Shane about whether this is his first time with a man in episode 1.
Also when he’s yelling at Alexei during the funeral in episode 5, we get to see him head on speaking Russian for an extended time, and you can see he is opening his mouth wider but not taller.
2. Palatalization
Every consonant has a place of articulation in your mouth, aka a place where your tongue touches the inside of your mouth or is positioned so that the air flows or is stopped in such a way as to make the sound. Making sounds is all about changing how air flows through our vocal tracts (throat, mouth, nose).
For example, in English ‘t’ and ‘d’ are both alveolar sounds made by touching the tip of your tongue to the hard palate behind your teeth. In Spanish those same sounds are dental, so you touch the tongue to the teeth to make the sound. In Russian you touch the hard palate and the teeth at once - the sounds are dental and alveolar.
In Russian consonants are sometimes palatalized. This means that there is a regular version — for ‘t’, touching the tip of the tongue to the teeth and hard palate. For regular “l”, touching the tip of the tongue to the hard palate or right behind your teeth and resting the body of the tongue along the bottom of the mouth, etc.
Then some consonants have a palatalized version, which happens before certain vowels. You lift the middle of your tongue and use it as the point of contact with the roof of your mouth instead of the tip. So for palatalized ‘t’, the middle of your tongue touches the ridge of the hard palate, and the tip of your tongue moves down to rest behind your bottom teeth. For ‘l’, the same.
In Russian the distinction is meaning bearing. So mat (regular t) and mat’ (palatalized t)’ are different words (cursing and mother, respectively). Another explanation here. Here’s an IPA chart with animation and videos of sounds being articulated. Try clicking on the ‘t’.
Connor is doing this. He doesn’t hit every single palatalized consonant but I’d say he’s hitting 85-90% of them. It’s wild! He was clearly taught by sound/phonetically which is great. But Americans often have trouble learning palatalization as a meaning bearing sound difference (I know this because I’ve taught Russian many times and there are studies) and he’s knocking it out of the park for someone who doesn’t speak the language.
You can hear it in his very careful pronunciation of I love you to Shane in ep6 - palatalized consonants in this phrase are the t, b, l, and b and l together: я тебя люблю/ ya tebya lyublyu.
Also every time he says the word хрень/ khren’ (shit/fuck) - he says this in episode 1 on the phone with Alexei twice and in the monologue to Shane in episode 5. The kh, r, and n are all palatalized, he nails it.
He even gets it in some tricky spots:
In episode 1 on the phone with Alexei with the baby crying in the background, he says the words для/ dlya (for) and блядь/ blyad’ (fuck). These are both notoriously tricky for English speakers learning Russian because every single consonant is palatalized. He gets both right.
He says the word больше/ bol’she (more) a lot during his monologue to Shane in episode 5 and nails the tricky palatalized ‘l’ in the middle every time.
3. Lack of aspiration
In English we have some aspirated consonants. The means that when we say them we sometimes produce a little puff of air with them: p, t, k. The aren’t aspirated 100% of the time but we don’t use aspiration for meaning like some languages do (ex. In Hindi kal (no aspiration) and khal (aspirated k) are two different words (time, skin)).
In Russian these sounds (p, t, k) are not aspirated. It’s difficult for English speakers to pick up this difference a lot of the time because it’s so subtle and hard to self monitor when you’ve never had to do it before.
You can feel it by putting your hand or a piece of paper in front of your mouth and saying “tik tok” or “cat”, you’ll probably notice the little air puffs.
In Russian similar words have no aspiration-так/ tak (‘so’) and кот/ kot (‘cat’)
Connor is doing this pretty well. He struggles with non-aspirated ‘t’, which is pretty normal. He’s better with p and k.
The times his “okay” sounds really Russian? Not aspirating the k is part of that.
He does a good job not aspirating the k sound in fuck in English, which adds to his accent.
In episode 1 he asks Alexei on the phone (when the baby is crying) как папа/ kak papa (how is dad), and overall does a good job with not aspirating any of those k’s or p’s.
His non-aspiration is pretty good overall in the long monologue with Shane in episode 5.
In my experience as someone who learned Russian as a second language and then has taught it to others, it feels a little bit like swallowing back or speaking from the back of your mouth to avoid aspirating. Or try putting another sound in front of the aspirated letter. (ex. In English, peak vs speak - the p in speak is not aspirated)
4. Correct vowel reduction, mostly
In Russian, word stress affects vowel sounds. In the syllable that is stressed (emphasized), the vowel has its most typical sound. In all of the unstressed syllables around it, the vowel sounds “reduce.”
Ex. the word for milk is молоко/ ‘moloko’ and the last syllable “ko” is stressed/where you will put the emphasis. The other two o’s don’t sound like o’s as a result. Correct pronunciation of this word is more like muh-lah-koh. As you get farther from the stressed syllable in either direction, the vowels get more reduced (o reduces to “ah” and then ə (“uh”) when fully reduced). (Tricky note: in this word the first syllable, muh, isn’t as reduced as it could be because it’s first, so it gets a little boost from that.)
Connor is doing this pretty beautifully throughout. Even when the consonant palatalization or the vowel quality is a little off, he’s knocking vowel reduction out of the park, for the most part. I imagine this is because he learned it phonetically.
Every time he says отец/ otets (father), he correctly pronounces the ‘o’ as ‘ah’.
There are many good examples in episode 1, but here’s a couple that stood out to me — when he’s watching Shane speak French, he says просто отлично/ prosto otlichno (just perfect/excellent) and correctly pronounces it “prostuh ahtlichnuh”.
He says the word теперь/ teper’ (now) a couple of times, and correctly pronounces the first e more like i (и).
When he and Sveta are talking about the ASG and votes in episode 4 on the bed, he says голосовали/ golosovali (they voted) and correctly reduces all 3 o’s, since the syllable ‘va’ has the stress: “guhluhsahvali”
5. Intonation of questions, sentences
Something you might know about English is that yes/no questions have rising intonation, aka we contour our pitch/voices up at the end. Like if I asked you “do you know the way to the store?” I would raise my intonation/pitch at the end to indicate it is a question. We also use falling intonation but often differently from Russian.
In many of the situations where we use rising intonation in English (including yes/no questions), Russian uses falling intonation. So the question goes down at the end instead of up.
There’s more to it than this but you can hear Connor do this very clearly when he asks Svetlana questions.
In episode 5, he asks her if Shane is also mediocre when they’re talking about other players on the bed before the ASG. And he uses falling intonation perfectly.
In episode 2 he says “this year?” When Sveta is telling him he could win the cup that year. His intonation falls perfectly again - а этом году? / v etom godu?
He also says a word in ep1 that I don’t think gets translated (the subtitles say “speaking Russian”) and his intonation is just so good - Неужели/ neuzheli (really). (His palatalization here is also great!) He says it to Shane when Shane asked him not to tell anyone in the first hotel room together.
Anyway. Connor, as we know, is hitting it out of the park with his Russian, and here are some of the reasons why. He picked up palatalization, mouth position, non-aspiration, intonation, and vowel reduction!! Like, damn.
titsay
jacobvanloon
turnnoffyourmind
stormborns
baratheonpilled
dailybridgerton
yousharknotpass
snowghoul
discoholicmusic
