#silias is confused too!

[sadnesslaughs]

Your elf crush confesses to you. That's cute and all, but she's a bit too… traditional about it.

(A response to a writing prompt)

“Valdia Te Faea!” The tree branches wrapped around my arms, pulling me into the air. As I lifted, I kicked my feet, sending my shoes flying, accidentally kicking one at Silia’s head. The shoe bouncing off her forehead, disrupting her blonde curls before landing at her feet. She rubbed the tip of her wooden staff against her forehead, massaging the spot before stepping closer, pointing her staff at my heart. A rosy blush stained her ghostly cheeks, and she avoided meeting my eyes as she continued tapping my chest with the wood. “I… love you.”

“Huh?” I was dumbfounded. I thought she had been trying to kill me this entire time. Why else would she ask me to meet her in the middle of a forest? As soon as those branches moved, I had expected the worst. While it was nice to know she shared my feelings for her, I couldn’t enjoy it too much with the feeling of bark grazing my wrists.

“I love you, Sam. You’re such a kind human. I want you to be mine. I thought you would have known my intentions; I gave you the dance of a passionate heart. Did my dance not sway you?” She sat her staff down by her feet, the branches slowly lowering me to the ground, gently placing me before her.

“The dance of a passionate heart? Oh, was that what you were doing? I thought you had something caught in your robes again.” I laughed, only to stop when she looked embarrassed. “Sorry, you’re a brilliant dancer, really!”

“I… didn’t have a lot of time to practice. I was worried someone would try to steal you away from me. Which is why I had to resort to the biggest elven declaration of love there is. The binding confession. Ah, I can’t believe I actually did it. I thought only girls in books got to make such a bold declaration, you must think of me as some savage.”

“No, no. I don’t think you’re a savage. I’m just a little confused about why you needed to bind me for a confession? Also, shouldn’t this have been your last resort? Seems kind of early to jump to this.” When I said that, she pouted, instantly telling me that was far from the first sign I had missed.

“What about the reading of a yearning soul? Why didn’t you say anything then?” She fiddled with the edge of her silver robes, biting the bottom of her lip in frustration.

“The reading? Oh, was that when you read those elven poems to me? I thought you knew I didn’t understand elvish.”

“You don’t understand elvish? But you used to listen to all my campfire stories? I told them all in my language. You even laughed along with me as I did.”

“I listened to them because I loved seeing you happy. You always looked so cute when you read those stories. All wrapped up in your robes, hunched by the campfire. It was adorable. I didn’t want you to stop reading to me.”

“You listened to them because you thought I was cute?” She took a long pause, looking at me in disbelief. Unable to believe someone would listen for such a silly reason.

“I did. You’re the cutest person I know. It’s one of the reasons I love you.” I gave her a small poke on the nose, giving her my answer. She didn’t respond right away, which made me question if she had heard me. “I’ll go out with you. Um, I don’t need to tie you up or something, do I?” I joked, only for her hands to wrap around my body, squeezing me in a tight embrace.

“I love you so much. I can’t wait for us to get married.” She rested her head on my chest, and I realized there may have been a misunderstanding. Did elves not do the whole dating thing? Still, maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. We’ve travelled together for years. Isn’t that similar to dating? We stayed in each other’s embrace for a while before she let go. “Let’s go back to town. I can’t wait to tell my parent’s.”

“My dad’s going to be happy. He always asked me why I didn’t make any moves on you.”

“You’ve made moves on me, though. Remember that kick you showed me?”

“That’s a different type of move, Silia.”

“Oh, then you’ll have to show me those other moves sometime. How many children do you want? We have one thousand years together, so I think a hundred children is a decent sized family.” She said, hugging my arm as we walked.

“A hundred?…. I don’t think I could handle that. Humans only live for fifty or sixty years, Silia. Even with your magic, I’ll probably only reach around one hundred and fifty.” I reminded her, feeling that might break down our wedding talk. Which was a shame. I was starting to look forward to it.

“Hmm.” She was deep in thought, thinking things over before giving me an answer. “Ok, maybe fifty then. Since that seems more achievable. This is going to be great. I love you so much.” She kept her tight grip on me as we headed back into town. I could only hope she wasn’t too serious about starting that big of a family. Maybe it was another elven tradition? It’s not like I had ever met an elven family with that many kids. Although, there was a first time for everything….

[deaf-bakugou]

I just recently found out I have minor hearing loss in my left ear and I don't really know how to think about that. It's not bad enough to need hearing aids, just a weird unbalance between the two and if my left is closer, my brain tries to decide which one's better so the volume fluctuates. It's kinda scary too because I also have this ringing in my ear occasionally. Most of the time it's quiet but very rarely has it made it hard to hear. Do you have any tips? I'm just kinda scared, tbh

I have some good news for you! I believe I can help! Let's start with the basics. You have hearing loss! Often a side effect of hearing loss is Tinnitus which is ringing in the ears! This is a completly normal thing to happen for individuals with hearing loss. Your silia (little hairs in ears that understand sound.) Are stuck and confused. They think there is noise so you hear it! I did a full more in depth post about it before. I will send it to you! The good news is that is if is minor and only sometimes, the solution should be simple enough. When it happens you want to I troduce a different sound to distrubt the confused hairs and get them back into a standing position. Listen to some music. Turn a fan on. Tinnitus in early stages normally only happens when the area around you is silent. So fill your room with noise to disrupt that pattern.many people with Tinnitus sleep with a small fan on because the sound waves prevent the sticking.

So now let's get onto the meat of the matter. Do you know if you have progressive hearing loss? Do you know if it will get worse? Do you know what caused it? The good news is that often hearing loss is caused by loud sounds, for example, blasting music through your headphones. If you try not to expose yourself to overly loud things then chances are your hearing loss will not get worse. The weird sound imbalance is likely something you will have to get used to. I understand it. Both of my ears have different levels of hearings. (My left ear is far worse than my right.) But it is a process. Try balancing exercises and if you are still struggling a physical therapist may be able to help you rebalance and solve some of those issues.

So what if your hearing loss is progressive? What do I do now? You may ask. Well it wont be easy, but I have a solution. The kicker is, you need to start NOW! It will be much easier to adjust while you still have a lot of residual hearing. Start learning ASL. Immediatly. That way by the time you need to depend on it, you are fluent. An important skill. Also practice asserting yourself. Hearing people will wall all over or brush off Deaf people and you will have to learn to not allow them to do that to you just because you struggle to understand verbal words.

Now we get to the real reason you are here. You are scared. There are other Deaf people who would sneer over what I am going to say. They would tell you to own it qand never be upset or afraid. But I am going to be realistic. You are hearing. You are probably TERRIFIED right now. And that is okay. It is going to be a grieving process. If you play video games I suggest Gris. It has a really good handle on handling grief. But you may never be proud of it but there is no reason to be afraid. Your life is going to change to accommodate but once you learn to subtly shift and always put yo un r better ear forward, no one, will ever know.

I hope this helped. If you have more specific questions let me know.