#I went for long(er) paragraphs and slightly less pictures again

[kimmiessimmies]

The Hot Wings are performing their first big outdoor Summer concert in their hometown. Teen friends Joel, Kyra, Joshua and Malik are determined to go and they're not the only ones. But life isn't all about the show...

'Out in the Open' goes live starting tomorrow, Friday 13 September from 13:00 / 1 pm (CEST) onwards.

[glowingbadger]

Request for SFW and nsfw modern au Sylvain and Hilda with a (gn or female) s/o? Ty!

((I also got another ask for Sylvain and Ashe, so I'll just add Ashe here and knock them all out at once lol))

Sylvain, Hilda, Ashe x GN Reader

modern AU headcanons

SFW (nsfw below the cut)

Sylvain:

- Sylvain loves all of the wonderful little trappings of being your boyfriend. He was the campus fuckboy for so long, and he knows that his reputation precedes him- so having earned enough of your trust that you'd give him the chance to prove himself means everything to him. As such, he's very dedicated to sweet little gestures each and every day to reaffirm that he's yours. I've mentioned before, but he's likely to send you a "good morning <3" text each morning and send you cute animal pics when you're sad.

- He adores sharing clothes with you- even if your body type doesn't allow you to wear a shirt of his, he'll lend you a scarf, sunglasses, any kind of accessory. Sylvain just loves the visual symbol of your connection, the idea that you could share absolutely everything. And again, it's very "couple-y," which he loves, since he hasn't really done the whole "serious relationship" thing very much before you.

- As I've mentioned in prior modern hcs for him though- it's definitely not uncommon to run into an ex of his while out and about. They'll either be satisfied with throwing dirty glances his way, or they may be amicable enough to say hello and chat a bit. Even then, you're likely to get a laugh and an eye roll and a side comment that, "Oh yeah, you better keep this guy on a short leash or you never know what he'll get up to." Sylvain definitely feels pretty sheepish after these encounters, apologizing that you have to deal with all of this, but acknowledging that it's his own fault. These kinds of incidents are likely why he doesn't like to talk about his past flings or relationships with you unless you really press him.

Hilda:

- Hilda is just so much fun to be with. She always knows how to help you relax- perhaps even a little too much at times. She knows the best spots to lay out a blanket for a nap or a snack on campus, and all kinds of great local places to shop. If you're the type to enjoy some, er, plant life, if you catch my meaning, she's always got a great movie or album to enjoy during a smoke sesh. That said, she's also super-low pressure about what you choose to partake in with her. She figures that relationships are supposed to be fun, so there's no point in sweating the small stuff.

- She loves to take you shopping and dress you up. Hilda has a savvy sense of style that blends classic pieces with modern trends (and she's scary good at knowing which trends will pass and which will stick around longer), so she'll take any chance she can get to pick out a cute ensemble for you.

- It can be hard to nail down her more serious feelings and perspectives on things, including your relationship. In a strange way, being with her is so relaxing and enjoyable that it sometimes feels like she's just goofing off and isn't genuinely committed to you. If you bring this up to her, she's surprisingly level headed about quietly sitting and listening. Then, she leans close to you and rubs her nose against yours and says, "Of course I love you, silly! I wouldn't bother being with you if I didn't."

Ashe:

- Your friends and family absolutely love Ashe when they get to meet him, and they probably started rooting for you two to get together long before he actually got up the courage to ask you out. You'll be study buddies and probably in a couple extra-curriculars for a looong while before the mutual attraction becomes too conspicuous and frankly too awkward to ignore. Once you start dating though, he's super sweet and attentive, always checking in with you after a big test or when you've been out late to make sure you're alright.

- When he messages you, he takes his time considering how he wants to word things, and he's more the type to send you one solid paragraph, rather than several shorter messages. He also likes to send you photos throughout his day when he passes a beautiful or interesting flower, or meets a dog out on a walk or some such thing. Sometimes, if you've been too busy to see each other or one of you is traveling, he'll shyly ask for you to send him a selfie, and when he sees you, he just sits in his bed staring at you with a huge smile on his face, his heart absolutely fluttering with how lucky he feels to have you in his life.

- He'll lend you books with the margins just full of notes, with passages that he thought were interesting highlighted, and little doodled hearts around sections that made him think of you. He could spend hours trading ideas and headcanons with you about your mutual favorites, and he even enjoys when your ideas are different or even contrary to his. He finds having someone to bounce ideas off of like this just helps him appreciate the depth and nuance of a story that much more.

NSFW 18+ v

Sylvain:

- He's always got a condom and/or lube on hand, more or less ready to go at any moment. He's very obvious about how completely into you he is, casually grabbing a hand full of your ass around your dorm/apartment, blatantly eyeing you up and down when you wear something new around him, and so on. He's also not shy with others about your shared intimacy- if you don't tell him not to, he'll brag openly to his friends about how insanely hot you are, how amazing the sex is, in whatever amount of detail they can tolerate.

- Sylvain loves when you come up with something you'd like to try in bed, whether it's a toy of some kind, a kink, an outfit. In fact, skimpy outfits drive him near feral with lust- especially if it was your idea. The mere thought that you went out of your way to find and purchase a sexy little maid costume or something similar to wear just for him is incredibly hot to him, and he can't wait to show his appreciation for the gesture.

Hilda:

- Hilda very much enjoys mid-day sex followed by a nap, or slow, relaxing and intimate sex right before bed for the night. Basically, she likes to be able to curl up with you and drift off once you've both been thoroughly satisfied. She's also very comfortable lounging around in just one of your shirts and panties, even if you have roommates around. It's mostly a matter of feeling cozy and relaxed with you, but she also certainly doesn't mind that it gives you the chance to ogle her body as well.

- She absolutely knows how to dress to compliment her beautiful figure- bras with just enough extra support to make her breasts look wonderfully full and plump, shoes with just enough of a heel to lengthen the line of her legs and her give her hips that pleasant sway as she walks. If Hilda is aiming to get your attention, she will get it. She always appreciates when you notice a new look or piece of clothing she's trying out, but she likes it even more when you can't keep your eyes or hands off of her as a result. Partially-clothed sex is always a popular choice with Hilda, as it shows that she's successfully provoked you into wanting to spoil and pleasure her immediately.

Ashe:

- He definitely wants your first time together to be special. He's just so overwhelmed by how strongly he feels about you, how his heart pounds at your touch, how kissing you feels like flying. It may seem like an old fashioned impulse, but he'll want to wait a little while into the relationship before "going all the way," and when he does initiate sex, it's likely to be at the end of a long and lovely date night. A play, a pleasant walk through a tucked away little garden nearby, and a high-quality but not obnoxiously extravagant dinner, then he takes you back to his room and kisses you slow and deep, then says, "I'd... I'd like to be with you tonight- for real- if, uh, that's okay with you..."

- Ashe is the kind of guy who really savors a range of different sensations. He won't hesitate to go down on you before seeking out his own gratification- hell, the feeling of your nails through his hair as you arch up from his bed is satisfying enough for him for the time being. He checks in with you frequently the first few times you're together, always assuring you that he's here for you, that he adores you, that he only wants to make you happy.

- He's pretty demure about discussing his sex life, blushing madly if his more outgoing friends prod him for details (has he finally "sealed the deal" with you?? How'd he land such a cutie??). He's not likely to sext or ever ask for lewd pictures, but if you send him one that's even slightly suggestive, he'll blush madly and reply with what's practically a rant about how gorgeous you are.

[tyranttortoise]

Dude, what happened to you and your scooter?? Was it a car crash? How are you now? And you said you are not doing well mentally right now, is that a depression? Just.... talk to us. It's not all about UT after all, we're worried about YOU too, you know? If you feel like sharing with us, please do. If you don't feel like opening up - then sure, that's your decision, it's public internet after all. Just know that in whatever case people care for you (even anonymous lurkers like me). XXX

This ask really warmed my heart.   (.... And I put a heart here, and it ate everything else I wrote in this paragraph, so lemme try again. )  It really means a lot to me that you’d reach out like this, anon. xx  Seriously, thank you for asking about me.  I’m happy to share the grisly details of that scooter wreck with you guys!

You guys ready for story time?

This ended up being stupid long, so I’m sticking it all under a cut.

Also, trigger warnings for blood and a picture of a cut at the end.

Okay, so the scooter was one of those Lyft scooters you guys may’ve seen around.  It’s basically a taller razor scooter with a motor on it – the kind you stand on, not sit.  It’s got a QR code that you scan with the app that activates the scooter, you pay by the minute, and you leave it anywhere on a sidewalk as long as you take a picture to deactivate it.  

I’d never seen one before.  This was in Atlanta, which is a rather big city, and I saw people riding these scooters everywhere.  I even passed a couple that looked almost as old as my parents riding them together with shopping bags on the handles, so I thought, This is perfectly safe. 

I was out killing time before a concert (Taking Back Sunday/Red City Radio) by hunting pokemon in pokemon go with Ant, and we saw the parked scooters on the way back to our hotel.  We only had a few blocks to go, so we started checking them out, downloaded the app, and gave them a  try.  

We started off riding them uphill, which is where I went wrong.  I didn’t think they had any power; everyone I’d seen had been barely going, after all.  So, I turned the accelerator all the way and even had to kick off with my foot like a regular scooter to get it to make it to the top of the hill.  

The moment the sidewalk leveled out, however, the scooters shot off.  Holy shit, they started to fly!  Ant was way ahead of me, and I started calling out about how it was going way too fast, and I squeezed the brake in a panic.  The scooter instantly started to wobble, and I put my foot off to catch my balance, but… the scooter was still going, so as soon as my foot touched the sidewalk, I was propelled off my feet and forward toward the sidewalk in prime face-plant position.  

I was still holding onto the scooter with both hands, and it happened so quickly that I didn’t have time to let go; I didn’t break my fall, but I did turn my body slightly.  (Later, I’d text my boss that I “hit the streets of Atlanta last night… with my face!”  He wasn’t amused.)  I hit the ground and the scooter kept flying down the sidewalk sideways.  Apparently, my side hit first and my ribs took the entire impact from how fast I was going.  My knees hit, too, because all of the skin was pretty much gone from them (and I still have huge bruises on both of them right now), my elbow was bloody, and I guess the bottom of my palm got scraped across the sidewalk because it was cut open.  

I remember pushing myself up and thinking that my head was throbbing.  The first thing I noticed was that my glasses were broken; I could see them lying in front of me, smashed to bits and missing their lenses.  “My glasses are broken, damn,” I remember announcing.  “And I think I hit my head.”  

My forehead was warm, and my vision was clouding in my left eye.  “Oh.  I’m bleeding.  I cut my forehead open,” I narrated while Ant grabbed my shoulders tried to inspect the damage.  However, he was too busy panicking to really look, and started crying and apologizing over and over, while I was the calm one.

My glasses had cut my forehead and eyebrow when they broke.  

Blood was pouring from my head.  I kept having to blink the blood out of my eye and hold my head forward to clear my vision.  I put my hands over it, but it kept filling up my palms and spilling down my forearms.  “Fuck, this is a lot of blood, but it is a head wound.  It’s gonna bleed.  Let’s move.”  

So, we move toward the buildings, off to the side of the sidewalk, leaving our scooters there.  Ant is still freaking out, but he has the peace of mind to deactivate the scooters (though forgets to take a picture of them, so we both end up with $40 bills later that Lyft thankfully refunded really quickly.  By the time I realized he didn’t finish deactivating them, I went to the take a picture of the scooter screen and just took a selfie of me all bloody in the ER.  We got the money back within half an hour.).  

“I need to go to the hospital because this is going to need stitches.”  I can’t even see the cut, but if it’s bleeding this much, I know it’s gotta be something I need sewn up.  “Do we call an ambulance?”

“Maybe you won’t need stitches.  Head wounds bleed, so it might not be that bad.  It’s just… too bloody for me to see the cut.  Let’s walk back to our hotel, and you can clean up there?”

I snort, gesturing to my arms.  At this point, both of my arms are purple with blood.  I literally look like I stepped out of a horror movie and got stabbed or something.  It looks like I just dipped both arms into a barrel of blood to the elbow and then yanked them out.  I’m wearing all black, so you can’t tell that it’s on my clothes as much, but the gray logo on the front of my shirt is dark red.  “I’m not walking down the streets like this, much less our hotel.  I’d scare people.”

“If we need to go to the hospital, I’ll just drive you there.”

I only said ambulance initially because I wasn’t sure how to walk to a hospital covered in blood, and there’s also no way I’m going to walk through our hotel like this and wait in the underground garage for the valet to get his car.

“No way.  We could Uber, but I can’t go in there like this.  I need to get cleaned up.”

There’s an Aloft hotel directly across the street, and we both glance over there.  “You could use the bathroom in that hotel,” he suggests, and I scoff.  

“There’s a lot of people around there… They’d start screaming or call 911 if I walked in.  Why don’t you just go grab me some wet and dry paper towels?”

“You’re gonna stay out here by yourself?”

“I’ll hide.  Just hurry.”

So, yeah, I’m still actively bleeding all over the place when he runs across the street, but I hide behind a pillar, crouch down so maybe people won’t notice me, and pull out a compact mirror/brush combination (the one that Viv gave me in Alaska, actually!)  This is the first time I get a look at myself, and shit, my face is covered in blood, and it’s pretty much turned my blonde hair pink.  I decide to try to brush the blood out, which just spreads it around and ends up yanking giant pink tangles out.  I try to get a look at the cut, but I can’t see it well past the blood, and every time I let go of it, it just pours out in a rush.  So, I start holding my sleeve against it, but that doesn’t help.

Ant comes running back with his pockets stuffed with paper towels just as a random woman peers around my pillar.  

“Are you okay?!” she shouts, horrified.  

Shit.  

I haven’t cleaned myself off, and I let go of my forehead to turn and wave a dismissive hand with the biggest, most manic grin I’ve probably ever had plastered on my face.  “I’m fine!  I just had a little fall, that’s all!”

She recoils a little, looking even more concerned.  “Do you need me to call 911?”

“Oh, no, no, no need for that!  I’m going to clean off and then Uber to the hospital, but thank you!”

She looks dubious.  “Okay.  I just didn’t want to walk away when I saw you.”

“Thank you for your concern, but I’m all right!”

So when she leaves, I proceed to start scrubbing the blood off my arms first, and then the side of my face.  There’s no helping my hair; my bangs are sticking straight up, matted into a ball.  Ant helps, and then I ball the rest of the dry paper towels up and hold it to my head.  I’ve still got some blood here and there on me, but it’s enough that walking down the streets of Atlanta won’t be too bad.  

We walk to the end of the block and get an Uber.  It shows up fairly quickly, and I slip into the backseat without trying to draw attention to myself.  But after about a block, the driver asks if we’re visiting someone at the hospital; obviously, he hasn’t looked at me yet.  

“Nah, we had an accident,” Ant nervously answers, and I meet the driver’s gaze through the rear-view mirror. 

“Are you… Are you bleeding?!”

“Yeah, but don’t worry.  I cleaned up; it won’t be on your backseat.”

At least he has leather seats, but honestly, I don’t think there’s any blood on the back of my pants, and I’m sitting forward so I’m not touching anything else.  I’m trying to be considerate but damn, I need this Uber.  

The driver is worried about just that, and he keeps glancing back at me.  He’s driving faster now, eager to get me out of his car.  He runs a red light, and I grip the side handle, muttering curses under my breath.

The hospital wasn’t far, but he still stops a full block from it and tells us to get out, and “Good luck!” before he speeds off.  It takes a bit of walking to figure out which part of the massive hospital leads into the ER, and it’s with all of this walking that I realize I’m hurting, and it’s not just my head.  My ribs feel like fire.  Gingerly I press on them and wince.  Shit.  They’re either bruised or broken. 

I’ll worry about that later; right now, I want my head sewn up so I can leave.  

As soon as we entered the ER, there was a security guard sitting by the metal detector.  I handed him my purse, but when he noticed there was blood all over it, he just asked me to open it so he can shine his flashlight inside.  “What happened, sweetheart?  Did you have a fall?” he asked, the picture of concern.

“I fell off one of those scooters,” I replied, and his face automatically changed.

“When will you learn?” he said sternly.  “I hope this taught you something.”

… The… fuck?

“I’ve never seen one of those before,” I countered. “I didn’t know.”

He scoffs and waves me through, shaking his head and muttering about the damn scooters.  I’m pissed off now, and Ant has to lead me to the counter.  Since I don’t have my glasses, everything just looks like blobs until I get close, and the signs might as well not even have writing on them.  It’s disorienting, and I hate it.

At the front desk, as soon as I say I fell off a scooter, the women react the same way.  “You should’ve known better,” one of them chides, and I keep repeating that I had no idea it went that fast.  I feel like a child.  

“You could’ve been hurt,” the other one insists, and I dumbly stare.  Why do they think I’m here?

Ant fills out the basic patient information sheet for me and hands it back, while I go into the bathroom to clean up.  The door doesn’t lock, so I have to get him to stand outside of it.  I try to wash the blood out of my hair, but I’m only mildly successful.  I do get to wash the rest of the blood from my arms and face, though, so that’s something.  I roll my pants up to assess my knees, and they’re skint up and bloody, but I know from the way I can move them that there’s nothing wrong with them.  The cut on my palm burns like hell, but it’s okay, and my elbow is just skint up, too. 

After half an hour, a nurse comes and wordlessly tapes some gauze to my forehead without really looking at the cut.  Then, I’m called back to the triage area where they take my vitals and ask what happened and what’s hurt.  I’m sat’ing 100, so I know that my ribs didn’t puncture a lung or anything, so I decide they’re fine.  

About an hour after that, I get called back, and it’s then that I realize I haven’t signed a consent for treatment.  I ask the nurse about it, he tells me that I don’t need one signed beforehand for where I’m going.  

We end up in the trauma section, and I’m surprised.  “I’m a trauma?”  He nods.  “What, a level three?”  Another absent nod as he tries to figure out where to put me.  A level three means there’s nothing possibly life-threatening about my injuries, but that I’ve sustained an injury that needs to be seen before a standard patient, basically.  

It’s then that I realize just how busy this ER is.  There were over 60 normal rooms we passed, and this trauma bay alone has 20 rooms, with four rooms for dire cases.  To put it in perspective, I work in an enormous hospital, and our trauma bay only has four rooms.  

All 20 rooms must be full because there’s a man with an obviously broken leg on a stretcher just out in the hallway.  I get lead around the corner, and then the nurse pulls a chair out and has me sit in the hall.  

Over the course of the next two hours, several different people come to see me, and I can’t tell which of them is my nurse or doctor.  Mostly, they just peel the gauze away from my face to look at the cut, and when I first asked if it was going to need stitches, I just got laughter as a response.  

A nurse was making rounds with a student and stopped in front of me at one point.  “This one didn’t have the sense to not get on a scooter,” she told the student, and I shouted back that they don’t have them where I’m from.

“You could’ve been hurt,” the student said, and I’m begin to wonder what their definition of hurt is if I’m sitting in a trauma bay.  

“Mmhmm.  Bet you won’t do that again,” the nurse chuckles, and then leads her away.  

“What the fuck is wrong with this place?” Ant asks, standing beside me; they didn’t offer him a chair, so he’s been awkwardly shifting his weight from foot to foot this entire time.  

A doctor comes to examine me in the hall, pressing on my neck and squeezing my arms.  I have to roll my skinny jeans up to show him my knees, but he claims if I’ve been walking, they must be fine.  He asks if I have any other injuries, and I think about the fact that my ribs hurt whenever I breathe – but I’m tired of this place, pissed off, and I wanna go home.  So, I tell him no.  Someone comes up and offers me a tetanus shot, but I turn that down, too.  

Another hour later, a resident comes to tell me that he’s going to sew up my eyebrow if he can get a room.  I don’t need a head CT, but he’s worried I may have ripped the membrane covering my skull, so he said he’s going to feel it before he sews it up, but “Don’t worry, we’ll numb you up so you won’t feel a thing.”

When he finally gets a room, he’s antsy, trying to move quick.  We’re in one of the large, critical care bays, one of the rooms where they bring the most serious cases.  He’s wearing a walkie-talkie that’s giving trauma reports, which is weird to me because I wear a pager for mine at work.  

“I’ve gotta irrigate that wound, but I don’t know how to do it without pouring water all over you.”

“Honestly, if you could get some more of it in my hair, you’d be doing me a favor.”

“I don’t think that’s coming out that easily.”

He put chucks around my neck and has me lean back while he pours sterile water directly into the cut.  This was honestly the worst part; I have a pretty solid tolerance for pain, but I found myself squeezing Ant’s arm and trying not to cry.  

The resident’s walkie-talkie goes off, reporting a two-car collision, and both of the drivers are coming as level one traumas – which means they’re life-threatening.  I’m definitely getting kicked out of this room, and he knows it, too.  

“Shit.  Okay.  Okay, it’s still got a bit before it’ll be here.  I can probably still sew you up, so let’s try.  But first, we have to check that membrane I mentioned, and ah… I need an attending to double-check me.”    

He steps out to grab another doctor, and this one takes one look at me and grins.  “You’re going to have one hell of a black eye, girlie.”

“Black eye?”  I’m starting to panic.  “I can’t have a black eye at work.  Are you sure?”

He scoffs.  “Absolutely.  It’s going to look gnarly.  But hey, let’s see if you have a tear.”   He holds up the blunt end of a Q-tip, and I recoil a little.  I know he’s about to jam that directly into my cut.

“Wasn’t I told I’d be numbed up first?”

“No time with 2 level one’s coming.  You knew the risk when you got on the scooter.”

“Why does everyone keep sayin–ahhhh!”

He sticks the blunt end directly into the cut, and then drags it across my freaking skull, up under the skin.  It doesn’t hurt as much as the irrigation did, but I still suck in a hiss of air and wince.  

“All right, so it didn’t snag, and that means you’re probably good.”  He starts explaining it to the resident, while I just mouth fucking hell to Ant.  

To make a long story short because this is starting to get out of hand, I get sewn up partway, the trauma comes, so we have to go back into the hall, and the resident breaks sterile procedure without changing gloves, so I ask for that tetanus shot after all.  He finishes up my stitches in the hall, although keeps saying that he wants to see the trauma, while I keep insisting he needs to finish what he started.  The attending is supposed to review his work, but an hour and a half pass without a sign of the doctor, so the resident comes back to tell me it’s probably fine and slaps some gauze over the stitches.  I’m also told it’ll scar, but not to worry because “eyebrow scars are badass.”

“There’s always an eyebrow scar in any character creation mode, so now you can pick that,” Ant helpfully supplies.  

Fast forward a bit.  I didn’t get any pain killers, but I had some left from where I got a wisdom tooth out the month before.  To put it in perspective, when I got that tooth out, I only took a half of one (it wasn’t anything hard because it was one tooth, so don’t worry; it was basically powerful tylenol that makes you drowsy).  But the day after the wreck, I took three.  My ribs were killing me, breathing hurt, my head was pounding, and bending my legs was agony.  Everything hurt, so I called into work for the first time in eight years and just laid on the couch.  

I could only get one day off, so I went in after, and desperately tried to cover up my black eye with makeup.  I’ll have to post some pictures below or something because I think I actually did a good job.  A few days later, I decided to x-ray my ribs because they were getting worse.  I thought that at the most, I’d squint at them and wonder if they might be broken, but when the image popped up, my coworkers and I gasped.  It was obvious breaks, and both of my floated ribs had the ends broken off completely, just hanging out below them.  

You can’t do much for broken ribs.  You can get them wrapped if they’re bad enough, and in some extreme cases, some hardware can get put on them, but that’s pretty rare.  It’s just something that heals on its own if you take it easy.  I knew that, but I still went to my primary doctor a couple of weeks later because they were only getting worse, and I wanted to see if I could get some time approved off work.  Plus, I was kinda scared the broken pieces wouldn’t reattach.

Long story short, I got patronized a bit.  She repeated the xrays of my ribs after I showed her they were broken, and also ordered an xray of my orbit (which the xray tech didn’t know how to do because that’s not something you typically get at a doctor’s office, so she had me xray myself).  When I asked the doctor why she wanted to xray my face – “There’s nothing you can do about a fracture there, right?  It just heals on it’s own?” – she replied with, “Yeah, but so do rib fractures, and yet you’re still here, aren’t you?”

Even the xray tech told me, “You know you can’t do anything for broken ribs.” when I was looking over my images.  “You just have to take it easy.”

“I can’t,” I blurted, exasperated.  My work is mostly physical; I lift patients and push machines around all day, and it hurt like hell.  

The doctor asked me if I looked at the xrays, and if I thought I saw a fracture.  “You tell me?” I asked, and she shrugged.

“Oh, I can’t read xrays.  You see more of them than me, so I figured you’d be able to tell.  But I mean, it looks like your sixth rib is really broken bad.”

“Sixth?”  The middle one?  It’d been hurting like hell, and I had a suspicion that it was broken.  “You could see it, too?”

“Oh yeah, that piece was way off.”

“Piece?  You mean the very bottom one?”  She nods.  “The… 12th rib?”

“Yeah, 6th, 12th, however many ribs you got in there.”

She was supposed to get the xrays read by a radiologist, but she never got back to me, so I just got one at work to check it out.  Which is probably what I should’ve done in the first place.  She couldn’t get me time off work, and she suggested I take ibuprofen for the pain, even though the last time I saw her, she told me not to take that anymore because I have a stomach ulcer.  When I reminded her of that, she shrugged and said, “What would you rather have?  Nausea or pain?”

…. I don’t think I’ll be seeing her again.

ANYWAY, I ended up tanking all of my vacation days to scrounge almost two weeks off work after a particularly busy day there made it get so bad that I physically couldn’t get out of bed, and that got me healed up for the most part.  And by then, some friends flew in to stay with me for a while, so they just let me be lazy and heal, and it really helped.  I had a black eye for a month straight, but it finally went away, and now the only lasting damage I have is a scar above my eyebrow, and still a good deal of pain in it.  Like just brushing my fingertips over it still hurts, so I think it’s still a bit broken; it’s bigger than my other eyebrow, and it’s kinda got a knot if you feel over it.  But all the other bones are healed now, so that’s pretty good.  

I guess the people in the ER were right, though.  I did learn my lesson, and I’m staying the hell away from scooters now.  

For those of you outside of the US wondering about our healthcare system, this entire ordeal cost me about $600.  

$200 for the new glasses because insurance wouldn’t cover a new pair until Feb, and I needed them right then.  

$300 for the ER visit

& another $100 for the doctors group that saw me in the ER.  I have the best insurance I can possibly get in my state, too, so this was just as cheap as it gets.  It sucked, but lesson learned!  

Here’s some pictures just to add to the story: 

This was me right after I got the cut irrigated.  You can still see some of the pink in my hair.

   Here’s the next day, before the black eye had really set in.  The cut’s been sewn up:

 Here’s literally the day after that – and pretty much every day for two weeks, before it started to fade.  

And here’s how I covered it up with makeup to go to work.  I got good at it!

The glasses helped to hide the swelling, really.          

Annnnd that’s the scooter tale. 8D

[bladekindeyewear]

Boots reads Homestuck Epilogue part... one..??

Alright, let’s do this.  As I’ve said, the page after this one is all I’ve seen, I’m diving in unspoiled.  Also I gather from some of the non-spoilery chatter I’ve heard from my friends -- one of which warned me this sort of thing was coming a couple weeks ago, and I believed them (but didn’t want to) -- that this first epilogue-upd8 may not be the only epilogue-upd8, which isn’t surprising either given how Andrew works.

Alright, let’s go.  Hope my stomach can take it!

So, Page 1, the mock-AO3 page that’s the only thing I’ve seen before posting this.  The content warning is EXCELLENT, and gives me hope that this will be the usual Hussie-caliber and more humorous than heartwrenching.  :)

It also makes some serious sense that there would be multiple epilogues; from the sound of the summary, this one might focus more on John and then leave ample opportunity to discuss the others.

Let’s click page 2 -- oh, or contents: “Prologue”, this being a chapter list for this is another way to do it.  Clicking Prologue.......

Okay wow, this is novel format for the moment.  Good chance it won’t stay that way.

These first two paragraphs are well-written and ominous, sure -- describing stuff we pretty much already knew was happening, in different words -- but even though the writing isn’t really pretentious, there’s still a good chance Andrew *views* it as pretentious enough to find cutting away to art-style instead hilarious.  Onto the third paragraph...

Music and Calliopes the other Calliope is conducting, yeah... Oh, there’s a garbage disposal reference.  In regards to a black hole.  Like the one I kind of pointed to during Dave’s intro sequence in the Third Scratch theory and stuff in all those big theories.  The ones I was, er, wrong about... ahem.  Moving on.

“Your name is John Egbert, and you have just had a terrible, deeply pretentious nightmare.”

Pfffffffff  :D

I love you Andrew Hussie.  Reading on...

YES I see chat colors. Chat colors!!! I need chat colors.  Reading reading reading let me get down to them let me

Absolutely nothing of note has ever happened here in the entire history of the planet, which you would know, because you created it.

Baahahahahah.  :D

Okay yes I’m at the phone-sterlog.

Uh oh.

I am reading elevated levels of angst compared to usual pesterlogs in this log.  Which is to say, virtually any at all, really.  THAT doesn’t bode well for the outcome/overall tone of this epilogue.  :X  --Not to say it isn’t *appropriate*, given they still haven’t fixed/resewn Paradox Space together, but... yeah, *future feels* are popping up on the radar, that’s what I’m worried about.  I loved the tone of the snapchats and the feeling that everything was going to be fine, especially given how the ending “not being what I expected” shook me a fair bit, but to look forward to when that may end... D:

Yeah, Rose having some serious visions about some unfinished business they need to get around to instead of just fucking around and living their lives makes sense.  :X  --or at least some timeline version of them.  I’m imagining they’re living varied, excellent lives in a whole TON of timelines of promise that commit our imaginings of their potential futures to virtual canon, really, with the main thread that ties off Caliborn’s stage play almost irrelevant in comparison... that was kind of the whole point of the Ending of homestuck earlier, of that final anime flash, the fact that the victory and planet and *lives* they won meant a whole lot more than whatever Lord English’s irrelevant machinations were.

So... returning to the tail end of that main thread and seeing how *serious* it might be....... yeah. Kinda mildly panic-inducing. :XXX

You move the phone away from your ear and assume an expression you haven’t practiced in years. It is the look of a man who actually has something to do.

Okay that was good.

Ah, he’s twenty-three now!

Let’s click the next link. ==>

Fuck let’s not recount Rose’s substance abuse.

Oh, cool. Er, “cool”. Rose is getting some of Rosejaspersprite^2′s awareness of all her alternate-timeline doomed selves and their lives.  No wonder she’s worried about the substance abuse she technically mostly *avoided* in this timeline.

Light explicitly relating to knowledge, good.  That’s a nice aspect tidbit to have reiterated.

ROSE: There’s a different scale I’ve come to understand. Another dichotomy that’s less... emotional, I guess? ROSE: Consider, instead of the word “good,” using the word “essential.” ROSE: And what exists at the opposite polarity from essential is... ROSE: Something that is best not to contemplate.

ooh.  oooooh. holy shit.

okay NO, BOOTS/BKEW.  DON’T GET FUCKING EXCITED.

DON’T get excited.

It only SOUNDS like she’s learned to recontextualize the whole adventure in the rich context of the classpect system, that’s just your wild fanfic-y theoryimagination talking.  Shoosh.  (Even though she IS very, very, *very* clearly referencing the Light/Void dichotomy with the above quote.)  Just... tamp down your hopes, Boots.  Leave it at MILD hope.  Like cool porridge.

Reading on.

Alright, yeah, this universe exists beyond the timespan of the Green Sun’s influence.  Unsurprising, since it was heavily implied.  And she doesn’t have access to her expanded Green Sun powerset while *in* such a universe, which was also heavily implied by alt!Calliope or her denizen or I forget the exact conversation where it said she’d have to make the final journey without Green Sun powers or whatever.  That’s cool.  (Though having it spelled out more explicitly than usual does make it more awkward to have her use her powers for humorous purposes on MXRP in the future.)

OOOH DAVE KARKAT AND JADE ARE IN A PERPLEXING SOCIAL ARRANGEMENT YESSSSS  :D

Best news.  Okay reading on.

ROSE: You will need to travel back into canon and defeat Lord English.

Yeah I guess.

Again, the way the ending sort of put it was that..... our heroes did have to defeat Lord English eventually?  Or set right some prior stuff like doing the stage play?  But that part of the point of this whole story -- the Ultimate Reward -- was that it didn’t really matter, because they had earned nigh-infinite branching timelines of promise in a brand new universe where they could go YEARS AND YEARS living their lives in many of the ways they wished, richly enjoying themselves and starting civilizations that would last billions of years, loving and living and experiencing, only “needing” to go finally check off these other responsibilities in a single timeline of promise at the end of an extended period of vacation they chose with no particular urgency.  Branching years-and-years of essentially heaven as long as they EVENTUALLY fulfilled that particular endpoint, and they knew it.  More or less.

Rose phrases it pretty explicitly, though.  John’s powers are the only thing that can warp people through canon like that without restriction, so he was always to be involved, but... *he* needs to defeat him?  Does that mean alone?

JOHN: yeah, i had a feeling that was going to come up again someday. ROSE: I’m sure we all did. That is, even those of us without visions. JOHN: i was doing my best not to think about it. i guess we can’t put it off any longer then? ROSE: Now is the time. We are rapidly approaching a point of no return. If the decision isn’t made soon, it will be too late. The issue will no longer matter. JOHN: when exactly is the point of no return? ROSE: Today. JOHN: wow. JOHN: ok then.

Ouch.

That’s slightly more abrupt than the picture of branching bliss I just painted.

JOHN: fine? ROSE: Of course everything is fine here. ROSE: We’re outside of canon now. JOHN: yeah, i know. what does that actually MEAN though? JOHN: are you saying this isn’t really happening? ROSE: Of course it’s happening. ROSE: Just because certain events take place outside of canon, it doesn’t mean those events are non-canon. JOHN: oh. ROSE: In other words, there is an important distinction between events which can be considered to occur inside canon, outside canon, and those which are not canon at all. ROSE: The day we went through that door and claimed our reward, we passed a threshold between continua marked by differing degrees of relevance, truth, and essentiality.

Well okay then.  I was wondering why she used the word “canon”.  They literally DID escape the narrative literally as *well* as figuratively with that Juju, then, Neverending Story style.

Also, Light being highly tied to canon and Rose having spent so much time outside of it... yeah, I can understand the headaches more, too.

Alright, reading on, it seems Andrew is using Rose to more explicitly explain how he intends all the non-canon stuff he’s presented to us to “matter”, for those who didn’t quite get or fully believe the implied explanation from context towards the end of the story.

Heh, so the idea is that the urgency comes from “it’s been too fucking long since the story ended, and this epilogue needs to come out when an epilogue would still matter to anyone”.  That’s kind of brilliant.

ROSE: As long as we live outside canon, everything that happens will technically be “real,” but only conditionally. ROSE: There are certain crucial events inside canon which must happen in order to continue to prop up the legitimacy of events here on Earth C. ROSE: And you specifically, John, have a responsibility to make sure those events take place.

Closing threads closing threads CLOSING THREADS :D !!!!!!

FUCK is this epilogue going to be mostly devoted to TYING UP LOOSE ENDS and clarifying stuff??? :D  Like the HUNDREDS OF LOOSE ENDS that were left unanswered because the ending tried to paint it all as sidelined/irrelevant regardless of the fact that they hadn’t been answered/fulfilled, which had previously pretty much traumatized me around Homestuck’s end because I was (1) so used to Andrew expertly tying up almost every loose end eventually and (2) was a theorycrafter with explicit investment in the idea that Classes, Aspects, and most of these loose ends actually DID matter???  :D

Sign me the fuck up!!!  :DDDD

...I know it’s doubtfully going to be anything close to all I hoped for, but still.  Answers, contextualization, and John tying up loose threads.  Like that final frog warped in front of Jade as a child.  That’s good, that’s VERY good.  I’m excited instead of nauseous.  :D

--and yeah, reading on, Rose makes more explicit what I said earlier that the justification Andrew’s painting for this is “we have to wrap up all these loose ends before everyone forgets about Homestuck.”  That is hilarious.

Okay, so the juju is a big plothole. Heheh.  We’ve heard it called that earlier.

...Oh.  Oh huh.

Rose is pretty much explicitly talking about the stage play consisting of a bunch of non-canon ALTERNATE VERSIONS of themselves that mean the original versions of them living happily in the new universe won’t actually die.  Holy shit.  I mean we theorized that for a TIME with some of them but THOSE loose ends (like Roxy still having her mask on) were closed up toward the end...  So instead, having it put THIS way (preserving our ideas of them living full lives post-victory), and not only that but having John DO all this stuff RIGHT NOW to fix things retroactively with some really well-written contextual clarification we’re bound to get to help with the closure... god DAMN.  This is really good.  This is going to make a LOT of people feel a whole lot better about Homestuck.  Like me.  :D

...Pff, some other girl is getting punched by John in the face again.  :D  Don’t worry, Rose isn’t saying that this is the Vriska punch at the beginning of the whole Retcon arc and that this epilogue somehow happened in the middle.  (I hope.)

...Yeah Rose implies heavily that John is gonna die his heroic death if he does this?  Or it’s meant to make us THINK she’s implying that.  Yeah.  And she feels pretty fucking horrible about what she’s asking John to go through regardless, so.  (Yeah, everyone looked pretty genuinely dead but a few at the end of the stage play, but it was pretty uncertain.)  Either way, she’s acting like John isn’t going to “come back”, even if he lives through this.

Stupid feels.

Clicking the next link.  ==>

Hiiii roxy and callie!!! :D

Yes how polite of them.

“Ultimate self”?  Yeah, a sort of synthesizing of all the offshoots of her Heart and Mind, pulling it all together and realizing the full person she is and sum of her whole experience across all timelines, pasts and futures.  Yeesh.  Pretty uncomfortable for someone who ain’t a hypersprite.

...Roxy and Rose aren’t as close?  Is it because of the substance abuse, because of the Light/Void dichotomy literally-or-metaphorically distancing them (with how disparaging Rose just was about anything that isn’t relevant), or something else?

Ah, Kanaya hogged her until she got “sick”, that explains some of it too.

A bell tower? (DOOONNNNGGG)

Fffff interpersonal relationship mildangst.  Fuck

You and all your friends have dispositions affected by your classes and aspects. You think you know what that means in your case. But what about her? You can only speculate. Void is a place where things sink and disappear. Where they linger forever, but cease to exist. You aren’t actually sure if your feelings for Roxy ever really faded, or if they just grew numb with time and distance. Is it the same for her?

Holy fucking shit.  What a big middle finger to everyone who told me aspects didn’t matter to their personalities.  :D

...Though, I think he has it kind of backwards, since he still doesn’t totally understand all this business.  It’s easy for those in canon, introduced to this subject, to think that the classes and aspects affect their dispositions, to an extent where the reality (at least I contend) is that it was their natural dispositions in the first place that the classes and aspects were actually describing.  The power that was latent in their very personalities and tendencies to action all along.

Reading... Ah, yeah, a choice.  Was pretty sure this terminology would be important earlier.  It depends on what SORT of choice this is though... see, so far, Rose hasn’t given John a lot of really EXPLICIT motivation to go through with this, other than some mumbo-jumbo that would supposedly be “bad”.  And it doesn’t even address the black hole in his nightmares.  And here, we have Roxy and others explicitly encouraging him with regard to the fact that he can choose NOT to do this if he wants to.

The main question it brings up (to the future of this epilogue, how it’s going to be considered afterward, etc) is if this is the sort of Choice that John would always say yes to -- in which case it’s more canon than anything else -- or if he will end up being on the fence enough for a Terezi-style Mind-split.  Because this would be the PERFECT out to have him “die” in canon.  See, if he’s on the fence ENOUGH about going, then he creates two timelines that even both potentially have promise within the confines of this universe (since universes hold more than one timeline of promise, according to one of the Calliopes I think)--  One where he lives here, happily ever after with everyone, and another where he completes his Heroic death in canon to fix everything.  It would let Andrew kill John in this epilogue while still letting him live out eternity with everyone else outside “canon”.

He’d get to have his John-death and keep him too!  Seems plausible enough.

Anyway. Reading... it looks like they know more about this decision that Rose has told them, including the consequences Rose might have been dreading.  And likely know that IF John might die doing this, that it won’t be in a way that he regrets.

Oh wow, that whole Meat or Candy sequence is GREAT.  Silly to the core, and yet perfectly emphasizing the debate that... well, I mean, think about what Andrew’s been telling us all along.

He keeps TRYING to tell us that non-canon stuff is fine.  Trying to use that huge ending sequence of Homestuck to try and tell us that the fact that everyone is FREE from this story and its confines, free for everyone to imagine COUNTLESS ways things played out afterward for ALL these lovable characters in carefree futures, is almost MORE important than any of these stupid loose ends.  But some of us were really cut by that ending, the insistence that the actual final battle “didn’t matter” and that this escaped-from-canon existence was the true victory.  But if Andrew just upped and drew a bunch of bonus pages to start explaining more story, THAT would cheapen the escape-from-canon ending he wanted even as it satisfied those of us who wanted ends tied up, who wanted questions answered.  He had to find a very careful, very well done way to give us BOTH.  To write out the real “ending” of “canon” for those of us who needed it, without compromising the ESCAPE from the very necessity of it that was the essential point he WANTED to make with Homestuck’s story from the very beginning.  To carefully keep the endless branches of post-victory possibility and play intact while still, separately and with explicit hedging and qualifications, give us the potential results of one last canon thread to tie up the lingering questions that he so dearly wants us to recognize still “don’t matter” as much in the vast scheme of things.

And he’s doing it.  And it’s WORKING.

Holy SHIT.

I am excited for Homestuck.  I am excited for Homestuck for the first time in years, and my nausea is gone.

I’m not going to start theorizing again; that’s over.  But I’m definitely going to keep reading as the new Epilogue chapters come out, and do so with a spring in my step.

To Be Continued.  :D

[ericlwoods]

Some time ago I exchanged the Sony 20mm f/2.8 that I bought when I purchased my a6000 not that long ago for the Rokinon 35mm f/2.8. My thinking was that the two lenses were redundant since 35mm (50-ish in full frame terms) was my preferred focal length and the Rokinon seemed barely larger than the 20mm (2.43 x 1.30″ (61.8 x 33 mm) vs 2.46 x 0.80″ vs (62.6 x 20.4 mm)) while gaining another full frame lens in my quiver. No brainer, right? Nope. I really like the Rokinon, but it was not a suitable replacement for the 20mm. Why? Glad you asked:

Despite its tiny profile the Rokinon better marries with the full frame Sonys in operation. Where focus speed seems adequate on the A7Rii it is less so on the a6000. No idea why. While not awful on the a6000 it is nowhere near as fast as the 20mm on the a6000. Had no idea how good that lens was until I no longer had it… The framework for an R&B or Country song right there.

0.5″ (12.6mm) does not seem like a huge difference in theory, but in application that turns a very pocketable camera into a somewhat pocketable camera. Also the slightly rounded front edge and metal build of the 20mm meant it went in and out of pocket far easier than the square cornered and plastic Rokinon.

Simple fix. Buy the 20mm again. One problem. Southeastern Camera had two tempting full-blown second-hand cameras (ones I always thought about buying) that barely cost more than the 20mm lens new that would be even smaller. The thinking was that for a little more spend than a lens ($350-ish) I could potentially have a whole camera ($500-ish).

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What to do? A comparison seems appropriate. Already being familiar w/ the 20mm on the a6000 well I focused on comparing the Ricoh GR and Rx100 IV. And I was able to do that in a brief real-world comparison courtesy the kindness of Southeastern Camera.

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Below I will post back to back shots taken with each much like the recent KEH.com legend/bootleg, Leica/FED comparison.

Arbitrary ground rules:

Both will be JPEG out of camera with no edits. I shoot in RAW+JPEG always but chose JPEG to test the in body processing rather than Lightroom and my ability to manipulate RAW files.

Both set to the way I typically use small cameras. Aperture priority, wide open, ISO on Auto topped out at 6400, no flash, AF-S, Average AE, and single shot.

In most photos I used the native focal length, and by default max aperture, when powered on.

Note: Chose not to make an issue of the varying apertures here (f/2.8 constant on the always 18.3mm GR and F/1.8-f/2,8 across the zoom range of the RX100 IV) since I did not see an appreciable impact on bokeh or light gathering when eyeballing the images. My layman’s opinion seat of the pants impression is that larger sensor/smaller aperture seemed mostly offset by the smaller sensor/larger max aperture at the wide end of the RX100 IV.

Photos taken back to back.

Ricoh GR

RX100 IV

Ricoh GR

RX100 IV

Ricoh GR

RX100 IV

Ricoh GR

RX100 IV

Ricoh GR

RX100 IV

Ricoh GR

RX100 IV

Ricoh GR

RX100 IV

Ricoh GR

RX100 IV

Ricoh GR

RX100 IV

Ricoh GR in Macro mode

RX100 IV zoomed in fully

Ricoh GR – Balu of Viva Mexico

RX100 IV Balu of Viva Mexico

Now on to pluses and minuses of each, final thoughts of each and my decision.

Ricoh GR

Pluses:

Feels fantastic in hand. Light. Quite a bit lighter in hand and pocket than the smaller RX. Truly a one-handed camera. Great ergonomics. Things like the one button effect button on the left that brings up a scrollable menu and other details make it very easy to get up and running. Worthy of the following.

B&W high contrast was very nice. Creating such dramatic images in camera is nice.

They jammed an APS-C sensor in this tiny thing.

Great lens.

Particular to this camera, but it came with a box of goodies including a wide angle adapter, hood, batteries, and charger. None used in this comparison.

Macro mode works surprisingly well.

Ricoh GR in Macro mode

Very quiet.

Minuses:

That APS-C sensor did not blow the smaller sensor away IQ wise as I expected.

There are JPEGs I took (that I now wish I had saved but did not) of a black plastic chair hit by sunlight where the GR rendered strange little blue and red splotches and the RX100 IV maintained all black and white. Don’t know why. Some may prefer it, but I did not like it.

B&W high contrast filter was very nice.

For some one focal length is a drag. But I shoot primes often on interchangeable lens cameras so this was no big deal. Admittedly given my druthers I would rather a fixed 50mm equivalent, or even a 35mm equivalent, rather than this rather wide 18.3mm (28mm equivalent) lens.

Focus, while not awful, could not keep up with the RX100 IV. You can also see in some images above that focus on the intended subject using center focus was missed, like the yellow flower on the cactus.

Note: If I had more time than a day I could have likely offset the focus speed issue by familiarizing myself w/ the zone focus presets I had read about. But quick AF is always preferable to me when available.

No EVF. No tilty screen. Hard to go back once you have had these.

No Wifi. Another feature hard to do without once you are used to having it. Available on the GR II as the only addition of that upgrade, but at a greater cost.

Sony RX100 IV

Pluses:

It has an EVF. I had owned and liked the RX100 II so I was already familiar with the RX100 line.

Has features like 4K, slo-mo, e-shutter that maxes out at 1/32,000 fps, and others.

Like the RX100 it has very good IQ for a 1″ sensor. Amazing detail retained in the shadows and dynamic range. Take a look at the ceiling pictures in the gallery above as an example.

Very small so easily pocketable.

Very quick and accurate focus. Astonishingly so.

Very quiet normally. Completely silent in e-shutter mode.

A rival to and even bests the feature sets of larger and more expensive cameras.

Wifi. Always nice to have.

Minuses:

No fault in general. This particular RX100 IV was in a rough state, but that was necessary to get the price in the same ballpark as the GR.

Common with e-shutters is that it has limited use and should be reserved for static shots.

May also just be this particular copy, but the EVF was a bit wonky. 2 step implementation requiring it first be popped up and then the viewfinder pulled out. Putting your eye up to the camera sometimes (and this is the part that may be isolated to this particular camera) pushed it back in slowing things down as you have to stop and pull it back out again. Not awful, but not great either.

Very small. Ergonomics a bit awkward for my beef mitts. True with the RX100 before, but passable. The addition of more features and the EVF did it no favors where I am concerned. Your mileage may vary. 

Make no mistake. Both of these cameras are great. Both are perfectly capable of producing great images. Could recommend both with a clear conscious.

Decision time. So which did I choose?… Er, admit I never should have traded the 20mm f/2.8 for my a6000 and buy it again.

Why? Came down to two things mainly. Ergonomics and IQ.

Ergonomics:

While only slightly larger than the GR it has many of the features of the RX100 IV like an EVF, Wifi, snappy AF, and tilt screen and is just as easy to use. And with those added features there is now enough body real estate to make proper use of them without feeling awkward. Turns out there is such a thing as a camera being too small.

IQ:

The GR and RX100 IV are great image-wise. But in my experience neither can match the a6000. The GR matches the a6000 in sensor size but, perhaps owing to the MP deficit (18.3 vs 24.3), not IQ. The RX100 IV almost matches the a6000 in MP count (20.1 vs 24.3) but, perhaps owing to the smaller 1″ sensor, not IQ. While I am not a pixel peeper per se I do like to crop an image occasionally. Neither can stand up to as much cropping as the a6000.

There you have it. I am quite smitten with the a6000. If I could only have one digital camera this would be a top contender. I never would have expected that considering that I purchased it as a backup to my full frame alpha mount camera. But as a camera that delivers blazing fast constant focus easily keeping up with 10 fps while extending the reach of my 70-200mm to 300mm, along with my other full frame lenses, it is a no-brainer. So it is a specific solution for my specific situation.

What would I do if was determined to buy a non-interchangeable lens camera and I had to choose between a second-hand GR and RX100 IV? Oof. That is a hard one. Because of the trade-offs mentioned neither camera pulled away from the other over the course of the day spent with both.

Both are in the same ballpark IQ wise so the best I can offer in this comparison is this.

Are ergonomics, feel in hand, and quick access to filters the most important things to you? Ricoh GR.

Are quick AF, photo specs like e-shutter and 1/32,000 top shutter speed, and video specs like slo-mo and 4K, and functional items like a tilt screen and EVF the most important things to you? RX100 IV.

On second thought after looking at the last 2 paragraphs it seems like I would choose the RX if I had to.

That is a purely logical decision. But let’s be real if someone has been bitten by the GR bug they want a GR and nothing I have said matters. And that is perfectly fine. If photography has to make sense we are probably doing it all wrong.

Happy shooting.

-ELW

      Tiny Second Hand Camera Smackdown: Ricoh GR vs. Sony RX100 IV Some time ago I exchanged the Sony 20mm f/2.8 that I bought when I purchased my a6000 not that long ago for the Rokinon 35mm f/2.8.