ringo

i woke up earlier in the morning with my menstrual cup full, and i went to the toilet. i took it out and i couldn’t even put it back in before i started to feel dizzy, sweaty and sick. i had to lay on the floor because i thought i was going to faint. there, on the floor, the most excruciating pain i’ve ever felt started. it just felt like a cramp, but 100x more intense. and i have very painful cramps every month that leave me completely disabled for a day or two, and this was much worse than anything. i could imagine that’s how giving birth without any medication has to feel like.

i called my partner, who was sleeping, between tears to bring me my painkillers. i have prescribed very strong painkillers and they’re the only thing that help me with period cramps. i took the pill and then waited in pain to see if it worked. i was crying and panting between the floor and the toilet seat, trying to find the least painful position. my partner was next to me but there was nothing they could do. i kept telling them “this is the worst pain i’ve ever felt” “this feels horrible” and they could only say they’re sorry and hold me. at this point i’m really thinking to call an ambulance. i think to myself, if 20 more minutes pass by i will tell them to call an ambulance.

they’re holding my head back while i’m hugging my knees on the toilet. i’m sweating and panting. i try to focus on taking longer breaths. and slowly, the pain starts to die down. it doesn’t feel so horrible anymore. i go to lie on the floor again because i feel dizzy, my partner asks me “should we go to the emergency room?”. i say “maybe”, but i’m feeling better. the painkiller is kicking in. i can get myself back to bed. they make me a new heat pad and we get in bed. i ask them how long did that last, and they say about half an hour. i’m so surprised, it felt like 10 minutes. the most horrible 10 minutes, but it didn’t feel like half an hour. i start crying again because it was the most painful experience i’ve ever went through and it was scary. i’m so glad i have prescribed special painkillers, because i know that any other common ones wouldn’t have worked.

i don’t have endometriosis or any oder period-related illness diagnosed. they checked me two years ago and they said they couldn’t conclude endometriosis. i’m asking for a new gyno appointment because i refuse to go through this without any diagnosis, this is not normal.

i would write a post about every single one of them

but i will just say thank you emily axford bc she’s the reason i listened to naddpod and im so happy

emily is probably my favorite dnd show player, she’s just amazing at roleplaying, at strategizing and at making such different characters come to life. also she’s hilarious!!!!

i started listening to d20 because i played dnd for the first time and i wanted to understand a little bit better what it is and i already loved brennan from college humor content so when i found out about d20 i was like great!!! and then emily playing fig was fucking hilarious and i love fig and everything about her. then her other characters in every season… she embodies her characters like no one and her roleplaying is chef’s kiss. like crown of candy she plays two completely different characters and they’re both so deep and well-constructed and rounded??? in the same campaign??? and sundry sidney is an absolute fav, she’s the one i remember the most about starstruck odyssey. and then when i was listening to critical role’s third campaign and she came as a guest and she’s such a different player than the critical role players and she was soooo good. i enjoy eerything she’s in.

so well i decided to give naddpod a try and of course she fucking exceeds and is amazing as always but then i got to see murph as a dm!!! he’s such an amazing dm!!! i think his dming style might be my favorite so far. and caldwell i only knew from some dropout content and getting to know him thru naddpod was amazing also, what a talented person wtf. i could also talk about hours how caldwell embodied bev and being a teenager so well and took care of so many details (my fav is caldwell saying that bev doesn’t know/understand yet that he doesn’t age as a undying sentiment paladin and i think about it so much) and jake!!! his first fucking time playing dnd and he created such a deep character? wtf? also the chemistry between the 4 of them is crazy and i love their dynamics

also as murph said in a short rest, these characters are not living normal timelines and they still have so much time off-screen to explore that relationship. i remember he said normal people might get together in their 20s, 30s but as these characters live hundreds of years why would they come together so soon?

i totally felt while listening to the podcast that neither of them is ready yet to be together in a romantic way… and maybe they never will. specially moonshine being such an independent character, and i think she’s portrayed pretty much as non-monogamous and i think even if she loves hardwon deeply she doesn’t want to just comply to the norm and have a normative romantic relationship with him. also hardwon feels during the last two episodes as if he’s still not confident enough to confess to moonshine and he still believes that she doesn’t like him (even tho emily said on the short rest that moonshine has more than platonic feelings for hardwon, moonshine never said that actually) so he wouldn’t confess on the finale of course.

but they had the sweetest moment with hardwon saying he wanted to move to the crick… omg my heart is so warm!!!

also hardwon started the campaign with an exgf that he hadn’t move on from yet and then she was killed in front of him and it was such a big deal for half of the campaign… it makes sense for him to have some time to explore other affective relationships than to jump again into being with “the one”

and of course all the nuance of the relationship, reads so queerplatonic to me but can read as so many things and it’s fantastic and such a good work from emily and jake.

one of the reasons i was a bit reluctant on hardshine is because between the kiss in the feywild and the resurrection i feel like hardwon is so fucking devoted to moonshine and his feelings are so obvious, but a bit afterwards he starts being affectionate to her in a different way and calling her sister and things like that i started to doubt if hardwon actually had romantic feelings or not. but then at the end he makes it very clear with his conversation with jaina that his feelings are romantic. but with moonshine it’s never cleared up, it’s just obvious that she cares and loves him deeply and i’m so glad that emily never put a name to those feelings and clarified if they’re romantic or not.

idk i think it’s bc emily said on a short rest that moonshine has had a crush that she was not going to say who it was and murph was like “do i know?” and emily said “no” and i was like she’s talking about hardwon for sure but jake has never said anything so i was more expecting a moonshine pinning than a hardwon pinning