you can call me Iyan or whatever feels right! heated rivalry mind virus + other stuff sometimes. he/him. queer. black indigenous american. filipino. PST timezone. disabled. mental health and disability sideblog is @sunshinefish — follow me on TikTok, X (Twitter), Substack, and Ao3.
vin de cerise (co-written with @maycontainsimonella), paranaormal heated rivalry AU.
bounds & content
Interest-centric blog. I reblog more than I post due to business, but I do quite often come out of my shell and post stuff. It's mostly Heated Rivalry here—a lot of the advocacy and sharing of causes is done on other platforms. I love mutuals!
I'm a busy college student. I block freely because life is a gamble. Don't be weird. 15+.
Mobility aid user. In the finalising diagnostic and treatment process of POTS, and whatever is causing my chronic pain.
I am the fucking woker. You will never ever catch any kind of bigotry on my page.
interests
Heated Rivalry, Interview with the Vampire, House MD, Adults (fx), Falsettos, LGBTQ+/general history, neuroscience, music, filmography, acting and theatre, linguistics, Sinners, Hadestown, Moral Orel, Cabaret, Wicked, Legally Blonde, Wicked, hockey in doses, politics, outlaws (cowboys, pirates), poetry, and so much more.
EXT: '#vegasfish yaps' for my really long analysis stuff. I try my best to do image IDs to accommodate, but if I ever forget, let me know!
When it comes to chronic illnesses, mental illnesses, and disabilities, I've noticed that a lot of able-bodied people either don't take names seriously, or don't understand and ask you to explain what it is to them.
Now, if you have any kind of disability, you know it's fucking annoying go have people make you explain something over and over again, or have people go "oh, you have X? You mean, like the [awful stereotype] thing?"
So, I have realized recently that being Vague As Shit is great for making people leave you the hell alone.
I have autism and anxiety, and with that comes the symptom of selective mutism. If you don't know what that is, Firefox is free. But I had an episode where I couldn't speak today in one of my classes, and knew I would have to explain it to my partner and probably my professor.
This usually goes with me writing that I can't speak, them asking why, me saying selective mutism, and them asking me what that is. Then I have to painstakingly write out an explanation. And, obviously, I'm tired of this. So I tried something new. When he asked, I simply told him I couldn't speak, and when he asked if I physically couldn't or just didn't want to, I just opened my mouth and unleashed the terrifying, awful, broken stuttering that comes out when I try to speak while mute.
His response was "OKAY OKAY OKAY YOU CAN STOP NOW" and he did not question me for the rest of class, and even explained to the professor what was wrong when she tried to make me popcorn read.
This also works on doctors. When I tell doctors I have PCOS, POTS, or hEDS, they usually hear "oh the crazy women self diagnosis disabilities" and treat me accordingly. So, instead I drop unhinged symptoms until they leave me alone.
"Yes, my last menstrual cycle started on December 12th, 2025 and ended January 28th, 2026." "I have experienced several events where I have passed out randomly, yes." "My hip has subluxated six times in the past week."
It's like in the principles of writing horror. If you name and describe the problem, it's easier for people to minimize and ignore. Don't let them. You live with this fucking bullshit every day. Let your symptoms haunt people. They don't need to know everything about you. Besides, it makes them treat you better than when you give them names.
Something about Ilya's reaction to Alexei calling Svetlana a whore being linked to how he watched his father treat his mother. How he was too small to stand up to his father back then but he will be damned if he'll let a member of his family speak that way to a woman he loves at this point in his life.
Hi! Here's a list of some Asian-Led/Starring or Asian Story Short Films and Movies that you should add to your watchlist for AANHPI heritage month. ✽
(NOTE: Please recommended additions, especially for PI and NH films. There are a couple of queer short films here. To all the queer Asians out there still seeking fellowship: you'll find it.)
OMAKASE (2024), dir. Tristan Au
Starring: Mika J. Nakano, William Poole, Emily Fan and Tomoko Takahasi-Lin.
Media: Short Film.
Duration: 26:25.
Topics/genres: Culture and societal pressure, aging and feeling like life is fleeting, and queer identity.
Language(s): English, Japanese.
Location: YouTube.
Centered cultures/ethnicities: Japanese.
Halmeoni | 할머니 (2023), dir. Kevin Jin Kwan Kim
Starring: Cici Ting, Haze Ham, Hazel Kim, Maki Yi.
Media: Short film.
Duration: 1:56.
Topics/genres: Forgetting your mother tongue/ethnic language, death and grief, familial love and strength.
Language(s): Korean.
Location: YouTube.
Centered cultures/ethnicities: Korean.
Lucky Fish (2023), dir. Emily May Jampel
Starring: Lukita Maxwell and Anna Mikami.
Media: Short film.
Duration: 8:24.
Topics/genres: Culture and family, growing up and finding your path on your way to college, and queer identity.
Language(s): English.
Location: YouTube.
Centered cultures/ethnicities: Chinese, Japanese.
Hold Your Back (2026), dir. Zack Fonzovs
Starring: Hudson Williams and Zack Fonzovs.
Media: Short film.
Duration: 5:00.
Topics/genres: (TW) Domestic violence, queer love and building a family in an echochamber of toxicity.
Language(s): English.
Location: YouTube.
Centered cultures/ethnicities: Asian-starring, not an Asian story (irrelevant to the plot).
Maneki (2023), dir. Brandon Okumura
Starring: Iris Liu, Elsie Wang, Garth Sodetani and Cory Wong.
Media: Short film.
Duration: 12:53.
Topics/genres: Sapphic 'meet-cute', hopeless romantic with a crush on a straight girl, rejection with a light-hearted ending.
Language(s): English.
Location: YouTube.
Centered cultures/ethnicities: Japanese.
How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies (2024), dir. Pat Boonnitipat
Starring: Billikin/Puttipong Assaratanakul, Usa Semkhun and Tontawan Tantivejakul/Tu.
Media: Movie.
Duration: 2:06:37.
Topics/genres: Grief of a terminally ill grandparent, familial love, aging and family, wanting better for yourself and motivation, the dramedy that is life.
Language(s): Thai.
Location: Netflix, Prime Video.
Centered cultures/ethnicities: Thai.
PERSUASION (2018), dir. Alex Lukas
Starring: Christina Hsu, Connor Storrie, Jarrol Taylor Jr. and Tanya Raisa.
Media: Short film.
Duration: 5:02.
Topics/genres: Fetishisation in the work place, type casting and stereotyping, frustration of an Asian actress trying to be taken seriously in between takes.
Topics/genres: The little moments that make us who we are and memory, turbulence and unhealed trauma, togetherness and culture.
Language(s): Minimal speaking, but English and features of many other Southeast Asian languages.
Location: YouTube.
Centered cultures/ethnicities: Cambodian, Laotian, Vietnamese, etc.
When The Sun Goes Down (2026), dir. Mia Frank
Starring: Neetika Knight and Ayan Philip.
Media: Short film.
Duration: 19:05.
Topics/genres: Childhood reconnection in adulthood, romance, metaphors of the sun, generational cycles and pressure, we learn from those we love.
Language(s): English.
Location: YouTube.
Centered cultures/ethnicities: (unspecified) South Asian.
(To close this out. Last, but not least:)
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022), dir. Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert
Starring: Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan and Stephanie Hsu.
Media: Movie.
Duration: 2:19:00.
Topics/genres: Generational trauma and familial love, philosophical ponderings like nihilism vs. existentialism, acceptance of life and its absurdity.
Language(s): English, Mandarin.
Location: Rakuten Viki, HBO Max, Hulu, YouTube TV, Prime Video.
Centered cultures/ethnicities: Chinese.
Once again❕please recommend additions in the reblogs or comments, especially for South Asian, West Asian, Central Asian, Pacific Islander and Native Hawaiian representation. Thank you so much: enjoy the films!
Happy AANHPI 🇵🇭, here are some reminders for this month and the rest of the year.
To Asian, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific islanders:
You're valid.
You're valid if you live in your ethnic country, and you're valid if you don't.
You're valid if you know the language, and you're valid if not.
You're valid even if you're disconnected to your culture(s), despite being raised in it or having it pointed out in your appearance, name, etc.
You're valid for openly celebrating and being proud of your culture(s).
You're valid for being White and Asian.
You're valid for being Black and Asian.
You're valid for being Hispanic and/or Latino and Asian.
You're valid for being Indigenous (indigenous american, maori, first nations, Native Hawaiian, etc.) and Asian.
All shades of skin, shapes of eyes, defining noses, etc. are so beautiful.
All of your names, cultures and languages are beautiful, even if they're not considered so/not fetishised by Western society.
Each Native land of Polynesia is sacred, and your staying alive keeps the islands alive.
The countries of South Asia, West Asia and Central Asia are all Asian countries whether you want them to or not.
You do not have to be palatable.
You are not for comedy.
People don't have to like you, love you or even respect you as long as you do all of those things to yourself.
To (mainly) white and/or non-Asian/NH/PI people:
It's important to be in listening mode. What you think you know secondhand doesn't sum up the lived experience of your Asian counterparts.
Polynesian indigenous lands are not only tourist spots. They are living islands with living people, not spectacles.
There is no "joke" in the AANHPI identity. If you find yourself laughing at something with no clear punchline other than the person, it's time to self reflect.
Uplift Asian authors and creators any day of the year, not just this one. Take May to clear some Asian stories off your Letterboxd watch list, though (e.g., Everything Everywhere All At Once, a very popular Oscar-winning movie).
Just because racism doesn't always come in the form of hate crimes that commonly "anymore" (this can really only be applied to some places in America, Canada and the UK that are seen as "woker") does not mean that racism has fully disappeared. We are in a very micro-aggressive place in society, making it very easy for neonazis to take flight and infiltrate.
Study, study study. Ask questions. Admit you're wrong. Stay inclusive. Call yourself and your friends, family, lover(s) and coworkers out.
Have a great month everybody. I'm making a post on some (mostly queer) Asian medias to check out. Bye!
It's not that Rachel Reid writes Shane Hollander "out of character," it's that she didn't make a character of colour rooted in enough reality and intention for him to be fleshed out. That's that. Rachel Reid doesn't acknowledge Shane Hollander's identity to the very nuanced point it is because she does not have the toolset of a person of colour to write that. It's very disappointing, but it would've been easier if she just hadn't acknowledged certain fan readings at all (e.g., autistic Shane Hollander) and kept quiet because I think that even she knows [to an extent] the character that people want of Shane Hollander isn't something she can write in a way that wouldn't read as offensive. Unfortunately.
Controversy is making me return to posting on Tumblr because what do you mean Shane "You Gave Me An ED" Hollander has "more important things to worry abou" (his depressed equally troubled WHITE partner). When will characters of colour get a BREAK??
I think that what many people don't understand is how micro-aggressive Rachel Reid comes across whenever she discusses Shane Hollander. I don't think anyone should be attacking her for irrelevant things (e.g., her gender or her fucking Parkinson's), but we have to call out the contrast in how she talks about Ilya and Shane on a micro aggressive level. Because there is no way his "ridiculous performance enhancement EATING DISORDER" is immediately trumped by his European, depressed boyfriend. Rachel Reid, arguably, does not know the character she created.
Let me be clear. I am well aware that she is the original author of the Game Changers universe and therefore Heated Rivalry. I am aware that, regardless, Shane Hollander is her character, so at the end of the day, nothing she writes is out of character. I think that she, however, is unaware of exactly the world she is having her gay, half-asian character exist in and how exactly he and the rest of the world would interact with each other. Shane Hollander is in a straight, white dominated sport as a gay, non-white person, and just the non-white part brings for a very brutal experience. At the end of the day, this is a romance-erotica and I'm not going to expect the world's best hockey commentary, but it's clear she has the capacity to go over serious issues like depression, sexual self-medication, etc. because that's what she as a white woman has the capacity to do.
So, no, I don't think she fully gets Shane because she has a fundamentally different experience of life as a white woman. That's that—she, in all cases, never will fully understand what she's putting out into the world. All of her very, very weird (and apathetic) takes on Shane Hollander show such a thing. All in all, we just have to sigh and understand that this is not the kind of story she's equipped to tell, but also point out and critique how her language (in the books or online) in regards to Shane Hollander can read as micro-aggressive whether she means it to or not. Perhaps this will change and be adapted in Unrivaled, and perhaps it won't.
I cannot stop thinking about what a fucking year Ilya had in 2014
Putin warns gay people not to spread propaganda during Sochi Olympics
Every Western media outlet wants a sound bite from Ilya, a Russian superstar who’s lived in the West for five years, regarding the gay propaganda laws
Ilya has to thread the needle of neither denouncing or promoting Russia’s stance
Ilya leads the National Hockey Team to a demoralising crash out
The prettiest man in the world makes the unbelievably stupid decision that now is a good time and place to talk to each other in public for the first time ever
He is upbraided by his Papa
Sveta completely misreads what he needs, and he can’t even be mad about it because at least she’s trying
The Bolotnaya Square protesters are convicted
Russia moves troops into Crimea
He keeps frantically googling pictures of Shane in the middle of the night
Russian opposition leaders are detained
G8 suspends Russian membership
Boston makes the playoffs
The Russian government enacts laws tightening control of dissemination of information, categorising bloggers alongside journalists
The Donetsk and Luhansk referenda, unrecognised by the international community
Boston wins the Stanley Cup
Has panic attack in a bathroom, is immediately accused of being an asshole for arriving on time
Successfully convinces himself he’s capable of having sex with Shane without feelings, definitely doesn’t cry once he’s alone
Super super fun happy times summer with his ailing father
MH17 shot down by Russian-made missile
Russia hits back at sanctions by banning food imports, sends food prices soaring
Oil prices crash, halving Russia’s national budget
Foreign ownership in Russia media is capped
Has Totally No Strings No Feelings secret sex with Shane, everything is Chill
Russian financial crisis hits, prices of food up 40 to 50%, some KHL teams can’t even pay their players
And all throughout this, every time he opens Facebook he’s tagged in yet another hundred fucking ALS ice bucket challenges
One thing I HATE in media is when the ship and it's tension has so much build up... and then it's anti climactic. Like when the slow burn just catches fire so now you gotta stand there and watch your "light dinner" torch your honda civic