#because they’re busy having the worst time ever and we’re expending all our resources on stupid classes instead of tailoring our services

[voltrons]

uhhhhhhh

[mustinvestigate]

stream of consciousness headcanon…ish…thing…

...which owes entire countries’ national debts to @niceteeth-nastysmile‘s health & food canon post and @adistraughtthought‘s on MacCready’s teeth and why Lucy was just beyond brilliant.

And this is all fic-related ponderings of general standards of personal upkeep in post-apocalyptia and their divergence from vault or pre-war sensibilities and how exactly romance could surmount this, which doesn’t really earn “above the fold” status, so…

So it’s generally held in fandom lore that folk are too busy surviving to truck much with hygiene, a thought which derails the sexiness of many T+ fics before they start. Like, “We’ve been trekking across the desert nurturing a deadly two-person epidemic of UST and, oops, convenient cave-in, we’re trapped together…carrying several days’ worth of sweat and battle muck in non-breathable armor we seemingly never change, without water to drink or freshen up with, and, y’know, let’s just sit in opposite cave chambers and breathe through our mouths until rescue comes, ok?”

And a vault dweller or pre-war person would live in suspended state of horror at the miasma of human funk and yellowed snaggleteeth when they have any at all, unable to hold a civil conversation no matter how high their charisma stat. As for romancing, well…nope. Nope nope nope.

Except, in settlements at least, with more pooled resources and storage space and security to allow people to spend time on less essential tasks like making tallow soap and extra under-clothing to change regularly and water to wash clothing and bodies, they’d totally raise standards to at least those of a modern week-long camping trip, right? Being clean and in fresh clothing is one of those small achievable luxuries, on the level of toys and games or cards for communal entertainment, that makes a huuuuge difference in feeling like you’re living, not just surviving. And with teeth, well, humans have been cleaning their teeth (albeit sometimes in ways that could not have been kind to gums or enamel) since we’ve been human. Morning breath and stuck-in food bits have apparently always been pretty high on the short list of activities worth spending limited energy on fixing.

Also often found in human settlements? Doctors, or at least some form of medical-type professionals to push for improved sanitation and enough cleanliness to minimise the spread of disease, not to mention heal injuries or perform simple dentistry or help prevent/treat substance abuse and all sorts of other ailments that lead to one being unable to maintain a comfortable-ish body.

(Aside for ghouls: although they’re described in-game as smelling like rotting flesh, I call bullshit. The smell of rot comes from decay, and by definition, things which are decaying are in the process of existing increasingly…uh…less so. [I don’t know, I can’t word good today, ok? Ahem.] And since ghouls are canonically unplagued by senescence [see? Fancy words!], there’s no decay beyond a certain level of damage that would produce that particular offensive smell. And further still since the skin damage would probably render most of their sweat glands gone or non-functional anyway, they’d possibly even lack the traditional human eau du ew at the end of a hard day’s farming. Y’all just decided they smell bad because you don’t like how they look – real nice, post-apocalyptic humans. Real. Nice.)

People living outside of settlements, though…they might be a different story. Like, raiders? Forget it. You’d smell ‘em coming a mile away, where they may be gasping their last due to catastrophic bacterial infection from what started as a wee molar cavity. They’re not expending energy on small personal-upkeep luxuries, or value stealing them from those who do.

Non-sociopathic nomadic types, like traders or mercenaries or people who don’t have useful skills or can’t afford to buy into a settlement (however it works when there’s no pre-war savior throwing away land for free), where carrying space is very limited and they likely don’t have much time or energy for non-essential luxuries…yeah, they might be closer to what we picture as a standard post-apocalyptic citizen. Like…in today’s terms…your stereotypical European gap-year backpacker. You’d certainly bathe and wash clothes when the opportunity and supplies came to hand, but wouldn’t go out of your way unless your red and orange Maslows were all in the black, and if your yellow, green, and blue were already in the pink, why bother?

(Is that a coherent joke? Probably not. Requires googling. But we strike on!)

Hence, in a slightly roundabout way, we come to MacCready’s teeth, and, further, the impact therein on writing a romance with a pre-war character. Or, really, any of the romanceable companion options, but fanon, and Bethesda going out of their way to make him the only one with bad teeth, seem to hold that MacCready’s a special case. He grew up LARPing Lord of The Flies, defiantly proud that there were no adults to make them clean anything they didn’t want to, and he married a girl (brilliant doctor or not) who was part of the same culture and tolerant of near-toxic personal hygiene or at the very least, since they seemed to be on the road when she tragically died, was biding her time until they settled down to enforce better standards.

(And, seriously, Bethesda, just admit it’s the same character as the Lucy he was best buddies with instead of someone who just happened to have the same name…except that does mean that sweet girl died terribly…and now I no longer know what I want to believe. Huh.)

And a pre-war professional lady, one who’d’ve had to maintain a polished image as a non-negotiable element of her career, she’d get past this…how?

Actually…even writing this out, it still doesn’t seem insurmountable. For years, I shared a very small office with a large, manly fellow who didn’t wear deodorant, worked out before work, and ate a lot of fish-heavy lunches. It’s amazing how quickly the human nose shrugs and moves the goal-posts, particularly for lovely people you get on with, or when everyone around you’s more or less at the same level of smell, or when you’re also working out and coming in kinda sweaty and, you know, we’re all human here, right, why are we so dang picky?

And my version of Nora, for all she prefers pretty dresses and parties, isn’t averse to dirty fingernails. She was in the military, had all her hair shaved off and slogged through muddy obstacle courses and dug latrines and everything; she went hunting with her father and helped out in his plumbing shop, getting elbow-deep in animal viscera and worse. A filthy soldier-type would definitely be on her experience spectrum with probably no more judgement than welp, try to stay upwind when possible, even that forgotten after she’s been in the same outfit herself for a couple of weeks.

But the teeth, man, there’s something moreish about bad teeth, right? There’s not just the aesthetics of non-white, non-straight teeth (trust me…having moved to a country [unfairly] famous for poor-quality dentistry, I can report that uniformly white, straight chompers quickly become the weird-looking alternative) but the visceral reaction to class comma lack of, to an indicator not just of “poor” but “poor and not trying to do better.”

Like, I grew up what’s politely called white working class (in a family that mostly passes leisure time with drinking, Fox News, and stockpiling weapons of dubious origins, so, y’know, shruggy-emoticon), and you bet all of us cousins had braces. We were going to get good grades and have office jobs. Our parents were real touchy about terms like “redneck” or “okie” and wouldn’t admit to liking country music. There was something different about the kids who lived in the same area but didn’t get braces. We weren’t encouraged to make friends of them, and as for dating…well…the bad teeth on a significant other brought home would carefully, one could say pointedly, not be mentioned, but every other possible flaw would be.

In college, I dated a mysterious guy I met on Match.com, who wasn’t white and who had the worst teeth I’d ever seen in real life. They were somewhere between ferengi and pirate and I’m sad to say they were the first thing anyone would notice about him. We ended up dating for two bloody years, even talked about marriage, and the funny thing? I never found out what the deal was with those awful, awful teeth.

At first, I didn’t bring it up because, well…how bad did his childhood have to be, that no one made him brush, no one took out a loan to get him in braces? Like, bad teeth were so intrinsically linked with lower-class deprivation in my mind that I just could not even broach the topic with someone of a different ethnic background. And, anyway, he turned out to be solidly middle-class from birth, held two degrees and a software engineering cubicle job that required a tie, even on Fridays. And by that point, well…if the teeth were the first thing you noticed, the second was that he was bubbly and goofy and sweet, and when months later someone looked at a photo of us and asked, “Oh dear, what happened to that poor boy’s teeth?”, it genuinely took me a minute to figure out what she was talking about.

So, my conclusion: even when one’s brought up to see poor hygiene and bad teeth as viscerally, mockably horrifying…as romantic obstacles, they’re quite surmountable. Like, there’d be some half-hearted stocking up of new brushes and mouthwash, nagging to go see the dentist no I don’t care that your childhood dentist looked like Ted Bundy, and probably a collateral raising of their bathing frequency through shared living routines, and it’d be fine, you guys. Totally fine.

Anyway.

This is what happens after a few months without drinking, y’all. These are the brain cells that’d usually get culled off by the friendly gin hammer.

[thecoroutfitters]

Written by R. Ann Parris on The Prepper Journal.

Balanced storage is important to ensure we really can weather life’s storms, great and small, personal or widespread. However, there are some things that make sense to stockpile in excess. They’re typically going to be things that we have zero or limited expectation of producing, or producing efficiently.

That can be things that are out of reach due to climate. It can also be things that are unwieldy to process or require long growing and then processing time, or multiple space-sucking and sometimes financially draining investments to produce something that can be cheaply purchased and easily stored.

Here I’m aiming for universally applicable items or standards, and trying to stay away from the ones that are situationally dependent. Even so, there are plenty we can add to this list.

Our current storage should factor hugely in determining if and what we stock to excess, and how much excess. We also want to consider our location and existing capabilities before we go whole hog when over-balancing stockpiles.

Prime excess items are also prime for barter

I’m not a proponent of barter-only stockpiles, but these are also things we or most of us will be using as well.

Some of the examples below are somewhat limited as to crisis scenario, particularly when we’re trying to avoid tipping or showing our hands, but many apply to all types of crises, slow or sudden. Some of the examples even have barter potential now depending on our social networks.

Not everyone is ready to start hitting excesses or extras

If you’re not there yet, first cover the 3-7-10-14 days every government agency and state/territory prescribes. Then be able to function for 30 days in a relatively normal society where you pay bills and family needs to be at work/school, rested and in fairly clean clothes without smelling funny.

By all means, go out further – it’s a suggested minimum.

After that’s set up, make sure you’re right financially.

Once your food and other daily-use items and your immediate-need goals are covered, then start veering into excesses, but prioritize them. Even within this list, how much of what we can make the most use of – personally and for barter – is going to be hugely individual.

Stuff to Stockpile (or, at least consider)

Large-Scale Staple Crops – These are, in order: Grains/carbs, fats & oils, protein plants, and other proteins. Tag on hay feeds for livestock.

Those crops tend to require a fair bit of space, some equipment, and significant labor effort and hours to produce.

It can be done, absolutely, but since they represent base survival calories and macros, and are fairly inexpensive in a world of mechanized farming (in about the same order as that list) it’s worth considering having them in excess to the rest of our food storage.

Veggies and greens we can produce pretty much anywhere and stand a much greater chance of foraging. Fruits and fish are neck-and-neck for next easiest to obtain for most of us (hugely dependent on where we live and how much other competition we’ll have for them). Hunted/foraged or raised mammal and bird proteins are even more location-based for reasonable expectations of impacting our food supply.

We’ll start balanced, ideally, but because of our likelihoods of successfully producing or harvesting/capturing, once we get to whatever our comfortable level is, we can work those items in a pyramid from deepest to “be nice if”.

Climate-Specific Produce – We’ll also want to consider things we like that just aren’t practical to grow or produce in our areas, for all kinds of reasons.

(The “value” article here https://www.theprepperjournal.com/2017/07/26/selecting-crops-survival-gardens/ has a number of assessments we can apply on that front.)

Sugar – There are alternatives to sugarcane that can be produced for sweeteners, although it, too, requires sometimes significant land area and post-harvest processing. Some of them can be concentrated enough for use in water bath canning, but it’s usually not an efficient use of those items.

On the other hand, whatever we think about it and its origins, white sugar is fairly cheap at the store. It requires nothing more than a moisture and pest barrier to store for decades.

Salt – Like sugar, salt is fairly inexpensive, requires nothing but a good container for decades of storage, and is vital in several types of preservation above its seasoning capabilities.

Distilled Vinegar – This one is also very doable at home. It does, however, require multiple pieces of equipment and the know-how to basically make wine or beer or strong cider, then clarify and distill it.

Not bad skills and materials to have, but also not always reasonable, particularly if we don’t already produce or have the ability to harvest fruits and-or grains … and harvest them in enough excess over our food needs to watch barrels and crates become buckets, and then those buckets become quart jars.  

Conversely, vinegar for cleaning and preservation is relatively inexpensive in stores, has a long shelf life, and is more compact to store than its ingredients and supplies.

* There are two general ways to make non-distilled vinegars that are totally worth it as seasoning, health boosts and a way to use tart fruits that are totally worth the much more minimal investments that take up less space and that are way, way easier.

On the non-food front…

Fire Prevention, Detection & Control

This is one that everybody, everywhere, should buy into, and then go to excesses. They’re too prevalent right now and too common in any disruption in services or extreme weather to ignore.  

Some aren’t going to be able to manage prevention’s and safeties to avoid having fires reaching us. However, we can all buy into smoke detectors and masks, make escape and rally plans, and backup batteries and supplies for controlling small fires and evacuating even in the worst of times.

Cooking & Heating Fuels

There are all kinds of fuels that fit all kinds of lifestyles. With any luck, we’re availing ourselves of multiple types, with backup methods planned for both cooking and varied ways to generate and maximize heating.

We want our stockpiles of fuels to expand past our stockpiles of foods in case it is possible to harvest more, and in case we end up expending more than anticipated.

If we rely on wood, it’s even more important that we stockpile to excess. If our primary tools – or our bodies – go down, our harvest rate will, too.

There are also all kinds of scenarios that also make it impossible or undesirable to leave home or generate noise.

If all we have is the bare minimum to get through, any delay in harvesting more can lead to burning raw woods, which hugely increases our risk of fires along with a few other undesirable conditions, or going cold. Deep stockpiles of fuel wood are a must if we rely on it.

Ammo

I can manufacture many things. If I live in the right place, I can even manufacture black powder and cast bullets. However, manufactured ammo (or components) tends to be more efficient, particularly if we’re talking about a world where we’re crazy busy.

That said, and acknowledging that I’m saying it’s totally okay to exceed our basic total-coverage storage, we do not want to go too crazy on this one at the expense of being able to easily weather everyday minor and major disruptions like outages, medical costs, decreased income, unemployment, replacing a fridge-freezer right after shelling the deductible for both home and auto, etc.

Remember, even the super-duper high-speed military elitists don’t always come home from combat. We don’t want to rely on being the better guy in a gunfight to eat, so we don’t want to bottom out the scale with imbalance on this one.

Tools & Equipment

The hardware each of us can and will make use of is even more solidly dependent on our storage space, location, and skills than ammo, fuels, and ability to source animal proteins. The tools that make sense for us to stock, and to overstock with excesses, revolves around the efficiency of manufacturing and the efficiency of making do with alternatives. That, too, is specific to each individual.

We do want backups of tools we use and can expect to use more if we’re unemployed, trying to stretch budgets further, or in any significant collapse scenario.

That’s tools we use, and that we expect to use more if our usual revenue and supply streams dry up.

If we have never felled a tree, live in an apartment/condo, have never located deer/pig/rodent sign and harvested that wildlife, live somewhere with about 6 trees per house, have never gone backpacking or multi-day paddling, live somewhere with tight fish and game limits, and-or have never gardened much, there are whole worlds worth of “must have” hardware we might as well not bother with, let alone spend resources on backups and excesses.

We’re better served extending our balanced storage and financial readiness while we gain the skills.

(For those who are still waiting for them, stick canning jar lids, water filters, lights, construction/repair kits, and fire-making supplies in this category – they’re situationally dependent and aren’t getting separate listings.)

Soap & Cleaners

Body to kitchen, clothing to gear, most soaps and cleaning products can be had fairly inexpensively and in compact forms with decent shelf life. There are many that multi-purpose across genres.

Homemade may appeal, especially if the perennial supplies and oils are already present. Most of us assume we’ll be working harder than ever if we end up living off our supplies, though. Go ahead and have extras stocked to lessen the workloads.

Balancing Excesses

While there are things that absolutely rate being stocked to excess of our balanced storage, and many have value for barter both in everyday life and definitely emergencies, we still want to apply some thought to how over we stock and balance within reason of our present situation.

Sometimes we’re better served extending our everyday-emergency and self-reliance capabilities than having an extra 18 months of soap and six seasons worth of canning ingredients.  

Stocking to excess applies to financial readiness as well. Many preps won’t actually save us while the rest of the world is spinning as usual. They can help, but it’s limited aid.

Prep for the most-likely events first, and cover them well. Build up rainy day caches and savings, and then, when we’re at a level we’re comfortable with, we can start intentionally and deliberately unbalancing our preps with excesses.

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The post Prep to Excesses – Supplies to Over Stock appeared first on The Prepper Journal.

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