Hello my fellow readers and writers and welcome to my main Tumblr blog!
You can call me Bluuee or just Blue, I'm graygender and demigender (As in there's kind of a gender in me buuuut kind of not) thon/thon/thons/thon's/thonself pronouns.
And I'm grayrose, and omnirose.
(Not saying my actual age but I am an adult and will avoid following accounts of minors, though my blogs are somewhat pg13 I won't be trying too hard to keep it that way, I will tag and warn as best I can)
I was born with a bilateral cleft lip and a bilateral cleft palate. I'm hard of hearing (learning ASL) with self diagnosed aphantasia and possibly other stuff.
{Note: I chose to say my disabilities and queer identities, but that doesn't mean you have to! Especially if it makes you uncomfortable! If you don't but still want to talk about your disabilities or queer identities then you can turn on anonymous and send in an ask to me or any blog you want.
Tumblr doesn't let anyone know who the anonymous person is and even they wouldn't know!}
My blog specifically for fanfiction is @need-stories-to-live and my blog for the Lord of the Rings character Merry Brandybuck is @ilovemerrybrandybuck so check those out! My AO3 is Bluueeberries1110 and my Wattpad (though I no longer use it) is bluueeberries.
I did make a Blue sky account and it's just bluueeberries (don't know how to link it. Edit: And now I've deleted the app lol)
If I unfollowed you but didn't block, it's not personal (or a big deal) just wasn't for me as I thought.
Not a problematic shipper or an anti shipper. Or anti any character. Don't get me wrong there are definitely characters and ships I dislike I just wouldn't say I "hate" them.
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Fandoms
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Current hyperfixation(s):
The MCU,
Marvel comics
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Please don't ask or talk to me about something that has nothing to do with anything I ever mention. I mostly just reblog stuff from people I'm following and on occasion I'll do a post with the tag #bluuees thoughts
Be patient with me I really do try and write.
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Thank you for taking the time to read this! Have a great day/night and leave any thoughts and/or questions in the comments. Goodbye!🤗
Saw the Doomsday trailer and thought I'd make some theories on how it's gonna go. Regardless if I get anything right (or how much) it's still technically spoilers so warning ig
First Franklin is kidnapped and probably Love so Thor ends up in the FF universe and meets with them.
(Steve seems to be on their ship? So maybe he's in it from early on?)
Thor and the FF go to Avengers Tower and talk with the Thunderbolts* and Avengers into forming a truce.
(Cassie's in this trailer and there are rumors of more young heros so a part of me wonders if the Young Avengers are gonna start up here? Can't see Joaquín in the Tower scene and he could just be behind Thor but possibly off to get more heros?)
Sue, Ben, Joaquín, Bucky, Ava, and Walker go to Wakanda then have a fight with Namor after, I assume, a negotiation gone wrong.
Then they end up in the X-mansion and fight the X-men (likely due to a misunderstanding). Obviously we're not supposed to tell who's all there but I do see something giant walking behind Cyclops so either that's Scott or a Sentinel. At least one of the FF, some Avengers and sone Thunderbolts*? Could just be all but that's all I saw
I don't think I missed much else besides that Johnny's gonna hold Franklin at some point with what looks to be relief (That's 100% not Sue. She's got straight hair. I think we're meant to think it's her. Unless we're meant to think it's Franklin? shoot) And there's a rumor that Bob's gonna get jealous? So maybe after Raven turns into Yelena she flirts or something? Or Johnny does after meeting her (why was the Mystique one the first I thought of? It's probably the second thing)
Oh, I totally forgot about Loki. Uhhh. It looks like it's not that one from the end of Loki s 2? So idk what the explanation is gonna be but ig he could hear of people jumping from universes and go to check it out.
Also I noticed there wasn't any of Sam being held back by Reed like some said? I wonder if they got a longer trailer or a different one. (I did like his white suit but the blue is growing on me)
What I think Doom is planning:
He wants Franklin's powers to stop the universes from being destroyed? Not sure what he'd want with Love but someone else mentioned that may be why Thor's seen with the FF and why his trailer had focus on family (maybe Doom just wants to be sure he has enough power? So maybe he also takes more powerful kids like America, Kamala, and Billy?)
Characters who I think should be in this:
Spider-Man,
Nick Fury,
Every other woman character because wdym there's only like 6 confirmed? Even without bringing some back to life there's a bunch.
Who I think is gonna die:
Some or all of the X-men,
(even though I'm not sure Bucky's making it much longer the actor is confirmed for Secret Wars from what I remember)
Clint (If he appears)
Steve (pls just let him rest all ready. he should be done)
Why do kids seriously think they're invincible when they put their personal stuff on the internet?
As a teen I was terrified that even mentioning that I existed would get me hurt.
I've been told twice by kids "I'm fine" when I tell them to not put ages on the internet. (the first one did eventually agree to not do it anymore thankfully)
abelds have this funky ability where they hear disabled people say they "can't" do something and instead of hearing "can't" as in, cannot, they hear "i can if i push myself and i just don't wanna". which is really interesting!
I have spent years holding the head canon that MCU Steve Rogers lied about his fathers death in TFA; the scene of him trying to trick his way into the military by lying on his enlistment forms is literally set around the fact that he will say anything to be let in.
The odds of Steve’s father actually being a great war hero who happened to be in the exact same regiment as Bucky Barnes has no basis in reality; both what Steve is saying and how Chris Evans acts is clearly supposed to create the idea that Steve is lying through his teeth, thinking that if he creates a narrative around his father being a great hero he will look like one too by proxy, and just trying his hand to sneak into the same regiment as his best friend.
Now we have no hard evidence in the first movie that he is lying. But we have nothing to suggest he was telling the truth either.
The only consensus I gave this scene is that the meaning could be muddled by Steve telling the truth about how his mother died. If he’s willing to tell the truth about one, why not the other?
But now looking back, there’s actually a chance he’s lying about her too.
Irish women in 1920’s America, to no ones surprised, by treated extremely poorly. The majority of them took on the role of domestic work; nannies, servants, cooking, laundry and childcare. The popular stereotype of the Irish ‘Bridget’ was of ugly, uneducated, sexually desperate brute. The Irish ‘Biddy’ was a popular character on Vaudeville, portrayed as both a slut, and sexually disgusting.
These portrayals in the media had died down by by the time World War 2 was in effect, and the dynamic had shifted with more second generation Irish citizens climbing the social ladder from domestic work into jobs such as teachers, police and nurses.
While none of this has any merit it is worth mentioning that Steve’s mother being a nurse and his father dying in war is an invention made for the movie; in the comics Joseph Rogers was a soldier during WW1, but survived, ending up as an unemployed alcoholic who died when Steve was young.
After Joseph’s death Sarah Rogers took double shifts at a garment factory, and took in laundry. She later died of pneumonia.
It is standard practise in the MCU for the writers to flatten the intentionally political aspects of Steve Rogers character into something more palatable to the audience; when creating the character Joe Simon intentionally made him born and raised in the Lower East Side, Manhattan to reflect his own roots. Being working class, and the son of immigrants is integral to Steve’s character. While Brooklyn is known for its working class roots, it is ultimately ‘safe’ enough to a modern audience. The Lower East Side on the other hand still holds an association with immigrants throughout its history in a way that might make modern audiences ‘uncomfy’.
Framing the scene of Steve trying to get into the military with his rewriting his family history to appear more ‘appealing’ to the authority around him, shrugging off the stereotypes that come with a factory working mother, and alchohol father, is genuinely interesting.
This scene is three seconds but it has me PONDERING
Anyone else ever notice in the first ep of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier about 34 min in right behind Sarah there's a potholder with bi and trans colors?
It's not like it's any version of those colors either. It's like an exact shade (actually after looking them up again the bi flag is slightly different it still pretty close?)
And it looks like a crocheted potholder so it's possibly not store bought.
why do closed captions keep pretending english is the only intelligible language? when a character speaks spanish what exactly is forcing your hand to transcribe it as "[speaks foreign language]" rather than "Si"
This intersection of Anglocentric bias + ableism and audism makes my blood boil.
People commonly defend this practise with "But the audience isn't meant to understand!" or "It's inconsequential!", neither of which actually address a) their assumption that the [ideal Anglo] audience wouldn't understand, or, perhaps most crucially in the context of CCs, b) that this is a failure of accessibility. A hearing person who speaks that "foreign" language will know exactly what's being said. A deaf or HoH person – the people CCs are primarily intended for – who speaks or reads that language should therefore have the exact same opportunity to understand. It very much feels to me like an assumption that we deaf and HoH people couldn't possibly understand any language but English, so there's no point in getting those languages transcribed for us. I hope it goes without saying how profoundly audist that sentiment is.
There is also, I think, a profound misunderstanding or ignorance of Deaf culture at play. Which is to say, CCs in English-language media are written with not only the assumption that the audience will be native English speakers, but that all d/Deaf and HoH people speak English as their first language, so all other languages are as supposedly foreign to them as they are for hearing people. But sign languages are their own distinct language. BSL, ASL, ISL, AusLan, NZSL etc ≠ English (and are indeed different from one another), LIS ≠ Italian, JSL ≠ Japanese, and so on. So, if you follow the captioners' logic to its natural extreme, all non-signed dialogue is "foreign" to many d/Deaf and HoH people and should therefore be labelled [speaks foreign language] / [speaks English] / [speaks own language] / etc. – which is, obviously, a terrible idea that perfectly highlights all the biases implicit in closed captioning.
TL;DR: your accessibility feature fails in its function as soon as you fail to transcribe all spoken languages.
happy disability pride month and once again, FUCK lazy subtitles. fuck the [speaks foreign language] instead of actually transcribing the words, fuck shortening sentences and changing whats been said for no reason, fuck censoring swearing in captions but not in audio and fuck anyone who says youre being 'too sensitive' for being upset about a lack of accessibility
Hellooo, i just saw your post about that "otp: true" search operator, so i looked it up and found even more on ao3. I wasn‘t sure if you allow links, that‘s why i took Screenshots instead (hope that‘s okey). Have fun :D
Person: "So I used chatgpt (as a joke) to write...."
Me: "Uh, huh. How about not using chatgpt/ai and use your imagination?"
Person: *blocks me*
Me: "Well alrighty then"
edit: I should add that I only said something because I don't want to encourage the usage of this type of ai. The only reason that person was able to get that story is because the characters (and Taylor Swift's likeness) were taken from already written stories and shoved into the ai to be turned into this "joke"
Had a dream last night that Psych crossed over with Brooklyn 99. Can't remember anything except the b99 gang looking at Juliet and Lassie like "Is he really like this?" about Shawn.
i think what bothers me about a lot of "girl power" narratives is that they function on the implicit idea on the idea that women can become worthy of respect. and i happen to think that really caring about women means believing they already are worthy of respect. that historical seamstresses and soccer moms and forgotten sisters and sweet polite little girls and someone's weird grandma matter just as much as the warriors and politicians, even if they, personally, never accomplish anything "cool."
I've seen lots of depictions of hearing aids and cochlear implants in writing and art, and very few of them actually match what that character would likely actually use. An especially common mistake is drawing hearing aids like they are wireless headphones, which is not how the vast majority of hearing aids look.
Here's a guide on hearing device types, uses, and how to better decide which one your character would have!
(Reminder that this is not medical advice, or perfectly tailored to every single situation. I am not an audiologist, just a Deaf person on tumblr.)
Hearing Aids:
[Plain Text: Hearing Aids]
There are many different types of hearing aids. Which type someone uses will depend on their hearing curve, the features they want, and the type of hearing loss.
1. Receiver in Canal.
Receiver in Canal (RIC) hearing aids are the newest type, and currently the most commonly prescribed. They have a small behind-the-ear component with directional microphones and processors, and are connected by a thin clear wire to an in-ear speaker, which is covered by a piece called the dome.
RIC are most commonly prescribed for: mild to moderate hearing loss (although they can be useful for some people with severe hearing loss), high-frequency hearing loss, noise-induced hearing loss, tinnitus, and auditory processing disorder. RIC are also available over the counter.
Benefits: small and discrete, fairly powerful, best integrated noise filtering systems, highest mapping customizability.
Drawbacks: sizing is not infinitely customizable, not good for more severe deafness, usually don't come in fun colors, difficult to use with low dexterity.
There are several different dome types, as I mentioned. Domes are soft silicone or plastic pieces fitted in diameter to the ear canal, but come in a few different shapes depending on the type of hearing loss. I'll talk about the most common ones, but there are a few other rarer custom types.
Open/Vented domes have slits cut in the silicone. They are the weakest at keeping sound trapped, but have the lowest occlusion effect (hearing your own voice loudly). They are good for mild to moderate hearing loss, but they can cause a lot of feedback, especially at higher frequencies, so they're most useful for high-frequency hearing losses. The amount of vents in the dome can be adjusted to reduce leakage.
Closed domes do not have slits or have very few slits. They keep more sound trapped, but have higher occlusion. They are good for moderate broad-spectrum and low-frequency hearing loss, since they allow less high-frequency noise to escape.
Power domes have no slits and often have multiple layers for maximum amplification. They have the highest occlusion effect, although people using power domes typically have hearing loss in the range of 60-80 dB, so occlusion is often necessary to hear one's own voice. Power domes can make the ear pressure feel unbalanced since there are no vents.
2. In the Ear / Completely in Canal.
In the Ear (ITE) and Completely in Canal (CIC) hearing aids are a less popular, but available, type. They feature a solid combined processor and speaker that sits in the ear canal. There is usually a small wire or clear plastic loop that fits along the curve of the outer ear both to keep it in place and to pull it out.
ITE/CIC are most commonly prescribed for: mild-moderate hearing loss when RIC is not preferred or available.
Benefits: no behind the ear component can be more comfortable, microphones in the ear have highest directionality, subtle.
Drawbacks: fewer features available, higher occlusion effect, can fall out more easily.
(There are some ITEs that have a behind-the-ear component for volume/power control and structural support, but the processor, microphones, and speakers are all in the canal piece.)
3. Behind the Ear.
Behind the Ear (BTE) are the most powerful type of hearing aid. The microphones, speaker, and processor are all present in the behind-ear component, which is larger than other types of hearing aids. This component is connected by a replaceable plastic tube to a mold, which is custom-fit to the user's ear and allows for maximum sound retention/amplification. Like domes, there are several types of molds.
BTE are most commonly prescribed for: severe to profound hearing loss, moderate or higher low-frequency hearing loss, children.
Benefits: sizing is fully customized, easy to use with lower dexterity, good for athletics (less likely to fall out), highest aesthetic customization, most powerful amplification.
Drawbacks: larger size, high occlusion, higher risk of ear infections, molds must be replaced as ear shape changes, tubes must be replaced regularly.
There are lots of different mold types. An ear mold is custom fit by creating a cast of the user's canal and ear shell. More or less of the "shell" of the ear can be covered by the mold. All molds have a vent hole to allow moisture to escape, but some molds have more holes cut into them to allow airflow or reduce occlusion. Some molds are hollow, while others are solid. (Molds can also come in lots of fun colors, including marbled or glittery, although insurance won't always cover these.)
There are too many types of molds and considerations to really get into exact types here, but if you look up behind the ear hearing aids there are tons of references online. [One type of mold I've seen a lot in real life but that I can't find the name of online are sort of square-shaped solid (often colored) plastic with lots of holes in them. They remind me of a waffle.] In general, the more severe the hearing loss, the less "air space" there's going to be in the mold.
4. Bone Conduction.
Bone Conduction hearing aids (BCHA) are probably the closest-looking in real life to those headphone ones, although many of the over-the-counter devices calling themselves BCHAs that look like headphones are in fact just bone conduction headphones. Prescribed BCHAs are often two individual rectangular devices, attached via stickers or a headband. There are a few that go behind the ear, although no component of the aid is in the canal.
BCHAs are bone conduction rather than air conduction, which means they get the sound to the cochlea by vibrating the skull bones rather than sending sound through the middle ear. BCHAs are often temporary aids (see BAHA in the CI section of this post).
BCHA are most commonly prescribed for: severe conductive or mixed hearing loss, microtia/atresia, and young children.
Benefits: more powerful and safer long-term for conductive hearing loss, typically no in-ear or over-ear component.
Drawbacks: require an external component (stickers or headband) to stay attached.
5. Airpods / Actually just headphones
Did you know, Airpods were recently approved by the FDA as over-the-counter hearing devices? The noise filtering technology makes smart wireless headphones a possible alternative for mild hearing loss, auditory processing disorder, tinnitus, or anyone who can't get prescription hearing aids. These are not a long-term solution, nor are they used by audiologists, but for people who just need a bit of a boost, having their headphones in all the time might be their way of navigating the world.
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All hearing aid types have their benefits and drawbacks, and no aid will ever be perfect for someone. Even the best hearing aids available can't make someone become Hearing. Some people who are severely to profoundly deaf report hearing aids giving them around 60-80% of what a hearing person can hear, and this number improves with decreasing severity of hearing loss. Still, nearly all d/Deaf/hoh people struggle to some degree with auditory processing. They may use hearing aids to give them general awareness of background noise (eg fire alarms), or for a boost while lip-reading, even if they don't help in understanding noise more generally. Hearing aids can also die or malfunction, removing the benefits they provide.
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Cochlear Implants:
[Plain Text: Cochlear Implants]
Cochlear Implants, or CI, are surgically implanted devices that stimulate the cochlea.
More on CI in one second, because I promised a return to BAHAs, which are a type of surgically implanted hearing aids. They get to go in this section because they are implants.
BAHA stands for bone anchored hearing aid (as opposed to BCHA, which stands for bone conduction). BAHA are the long-term alternative to BCHAs. A titanium plate is anchored to the skull, and an external hearing aid component attaches to the plate and vibrates it.
BAHA are most commonly prescribed for: severe to profound conductive hearing loss, microtia/atresia. (One of the major use cases for BAHA is Treacher-Collins Syndrome, which often causes bilateral microtia. Since the hearing loss is purely conductive, and traditional hearing aids do not typically fit people with microtia even without atresia, BCHA/BAHA are the best aids.)
Back to CIs. Unlike BAHAs, cochlear implants are implanted into the cochlea to directly stimulate the auditory nerve. They bypass the outer, middle, and inner ear systems, so they are useful for any type of hearing loss.
In order to qualify for a CI, one needs profound hearing loss across all or most frequencies, and the presence of both the cochlea and the auditory nerve (CI won't work without those structures). Someone can qualify for a CI in one ear but not the other; even if someone is qualified to receive implants in both ears, they're expensive and the surgery has risks, so many bilaterally deaf people have only one implant.
In the United States, CIs are approved starting at 9 months old, but not any younger. (This is a problem for auditory development--although CI are often billed as a "cure" or "complete treatment" to deafness, the reality is that even bilateral CI users who received speech and auditory therapy from the moment their devices were programmed still lag behind hearing peers in auditory development, because they are deaf. But that's part of a larger conversation regarding deaf development and audism.)
CIs have a small disc that magnetically attaches to the skull near the implant site. That disc transmits the sound through the bone, which is then transmitted to the auditory nerve. Usually, the disc is connected to a wire, which runs to a behind-the-ear processor piece. CIs have a couple different types, just like hearing aids. I'll run through them pretty quickly.
1. "Button" CI.
These are fairly new. They only have the magnetic disc; all the processors and microphones are inside it. They're less visible, but less powerful.
2. Behind the ear microphone.
The BTE component contains the microphones and processors. There is a hook to keep it in place on the ear, but no part of the CI goes into the ear canal. These have similar directional power to BTE hearing aids.
3. In-ear microphone.
The processors are on a behind-the-ear component, but they receive signal from a microphone positioned at the opening of the ear canal. These give the best directional sound filtering, since they receive the auditory input from the same place as a hearing person, often with the benefits of the shape of the outer ear.
4. Mixed type CI + hearing aid.
These are also very new! Previous CI techniques, and many surgeons today, destroy residual hearing, so when the CI processor is disconnected, the user receives no auditory input, even if they had some before getting a CI. However, some new techniques can preserve residual hearing, and the cochlear implant can be combined with a hearing aid. This device looks like a BTE hearing aid with either a mold or power dome, but also connected by a wire to the magnetic disc of a CI.
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What type of CI a person has depends on the technology when they were implanted, what sound quality they want, or what they can afford.
The sound from CIs don't match how hearing people hear things. CI have way fewer neural connections than the cochlea has. Bilateral CI is often more effective for oralism than unilateral, but even then, CIs do not replicate natural hearing.
A CI can be implanted at any age, although it's most "effective" in infancy or adults with new-onset hearing loss, rather than people who have grown up d/Deaf. Getting a CI in adulthood is a very personal choice and can have a lot of meaning for a Deaf person.
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Gene Therapy:
[Plain Text: Gene Therapy]
This post has gone on long enough, and this isn't a hearing assistive device, but it is something to consider in a sci-fi or post-modern setting, and something we (the Deaf community) have to deal with right now.
There are currently new therapies (around 3 years in trial) that target OTOF mutations that cause severe to profound congenital deafness. OTOF mutations cause the loss of a protein that turns cilia movement in the cochlea into neural signals. The gene therapy introduces the gene that codes for this protein into the inner ear.
A small study on around 20 children, teens, and young adults with profound hearing loss (>100 dB) saw hearing curves change to 56 dB +/- 30 dB. I couldn't get the raw data because I couldn't access the study, but that means the average participant is still moderately hard of hearing and still needs hearing aids and accommodations. Depending on the metrics for calculating that error, there was likely at least one participant who remained severely to profoundly deaf after the gene therapy, and no participants became medically hearing.
We still have no data on if this gene therapy lasts forever or what kind of side effects it has. It also only works for a specific class of OTOF mutations, which account for many cases of congenital genetic deafness, but not all. Every single study on the gene therapy is produced by one company. This technology has not yet been peer-reviewed or tested for long enough. Nevertheless, hearing people are treating this as a cure, that the Deaf community doesn't want.
If a deaf person wants access to a technology like this, that is again their choice. Forcing this onto infants and children without autonomy or the ability to make an informed decision is horrible. The push to "cure" deafness goes hand-in-hand with the destruction of Deaf culture. It is eugenics. If you're going to include gene therapy or some other magical "fix" to deafness in your story, think about that.
Direct Speech (DS): He said, "Like it here in London!"
Indirect Speech (IS): He said that he liked it there in London!
Free Direct Speech (FDS): I like it here in London!
Free Indirect Speech (FIS): He liked it there in London!
Narrative Report of a Speech Act (NRSA): He expressed his pleasure at being in London.
Narrative Report of an Act (NRA): He liked London.
What to do with that information:
Practice using all of the above in your writing and consider how you can use the different types for achieve different effects.
Switch up your style of dialogue every once in a while to avoid repetition and tighten the writing by skipping unnecessary dialogue.
For example, rather than writing out an irritating but not plot relevant conversation, you can simply give context for the characters bad mood with, "After surviving one of the most frustrating conversations I'd had all year, I could finally..."
Depending on which one of these styles you choose, the narrator or the character gets more control over the narrative; DS is much harder to twist than NRA ➛ For unreliable narrators, NRSA and NRA are perfect ways to mask when a conversation is not being relayed accurately.
