Dp x MHA prompt/story; ghostly child.

Okay so this idea been turning in my head for most of the day so I'm going to try to write this, anyone is free to add to it too.

Main plot is this; Danny is on the run from the GIW, being injured enough to cause him to de-age to around 6-7 years old. Same power strength and mind, but suffering from pretty bad injuries such as dissection, and having a lightning scar on his arm from the accident, others are from dealing with the other ghosts.

Danny does try to survive by himself, mainly useing the tricks and abilities he learned from his rouges, mostly doing the bare minimum to get by like steal food and clothes, sometimes kick bad guys to the curb but mostly keeps to himself.

He is in the MHA because during his escape he ended up creating a portal, while doing so he was begging for safety and to finally be accepted, the infinite realms awnsered by placing him a universe of heros, though it takes Danny some time to realize that.

Now with that established time to try and start the story, (though writing this while a bit tired)

___________________________________

.

Danny's bare feet echoed as he ran through the rain storm, it made his body shiver yet he kept pushing through as his medical gown was almost causing him to trip due to it being a size a bit to big.

Yet it didn't matter to the young boy as he ran through the dark streets and alleyways, the pitch blackness of the night helped cover his tracks as he pushed his body forward.

All Danny knew was he needed to run, get away from the men in snow white suits, or else his blood will be splattered again.

No, no, that can't happen again, they had already cut Danny's body over a thousand times that he worried if there was anything human left of him.

His hair was already permanently white, his eyes now a sickly green that shined like spot lights in the dark, he even lost the real need to breath which was the only reason he hasn't collapsed yet.

The sickly young boy only stopped running when he slammed into a trash can, causing him to fall over and cry out in pain as his hands and knees bleed out a toxic red and green.

Painful sobs escaped his mouth as he culled up behind a dumpster, useing what little shelter from the pouring rain.

Finally unable to go any further Danny passes out, coughing now and then as he falls into a restless sleep.

--------------------------------------------

The sounds of birds chipping and passing by cars woke up Danny as the sunrise peeked though the clouds.

Rubbing his eyes and sticking to the shadows Danny crawled from his hiding spot to see where he even was, everything felt so much bigger then they used to be and it was kind of scary.

When Danny peeked around the corner what he saw made his eyes widen.

People and humanoid creatures walked the streets, drove in cars, and chatted away like there wasn't a problem in the world, living their lives without a care around them.

How long was Danny locked up? How far has the world move on that both human amd supernaturals could live together without fear? Would he be accepted for once or rejected again and hunted?

Too many questions filled the young halfa's mind, he needed to get away from the crowds and find some where safe, after all the Guys In White was most likely still looking for him.

Backing away further into the shadows Danny took twisting turns and back paths just to try and stay hidden. Ducking behind whatever he could find like a scared beast whenever a loud or sudden noise happened.

After hours of wondering the streets a painful growl came from Danny's stomach, reminding him that he was still human enough to need food, real food, not just literal trash.

Grumbling Danny went looking for an out of way convince store or small food shop, knowing full well he will have to steal from it. He would possibly go to a bigger food chain that wouldn't care as much about a few missing items, but Danny was still scared of being seen by too many people.

Finally finding a shop that was out of the way and didn't seem to have even a customer inside it Danny took his chance.

Pulling at his core and useing what energy he had, turned himself invisible and intangible as he walked right through the door.

Moving quickly he grabbed what his tiny arms could hold, which was a water bottle and twi pre made sandwiches.

Looking at the check out counter he could see a very tired looking young lady with stripes and long fangs, looking close to a wearcat, bored out of her mind. Werid words and colorful posters sounded her like some kind of ads.

Seeing he wasn't noticed yet Danny bolted for the door.

His invisibility slipped just as he passed the store clerk, leaving her only a sight of a small white haired boy in a werid gown phasing though the doors. It took only a second to make her realize he was running with unpaid store items.

Danny could hear distant yelling as he booked it back to the darkness of the alleyways, catching a few other people's attention but escaping.

Once sure no one was chasing him, Danny wolfed down his sandwiches and downed the water. Ancients, he hadn't even eaten or even got a proper drink like that in ages, tye most he gotten was the bare minimum to keep him alive.

Now a bit more fulied and a clearer mind Danny was planning his next move, which was finding a place to well, live in. A place to hide away from and maybe make his new haunt if it stays a good spot.

As he dusted himself off a near by broken mirror caught his eye. Moving forward Danny could see himself for the first time in a long while... it was a bit distressing.

Standing in the reflection was a young boy no older then 7, with snow white hair that was long and tangled with ectoplasm abd blood, wearing an oversized medical gown that was torn at the bottom, showing his recent knee injuries and barely hiding his lightning scar and others. Lime green eyes stared back at him as tears were rolling down his crumb covered face.

Not wanting to look at the monster in the mirror any longer, Danny matched forward in hopes to find an abounded building close by so he wouldn't have to pass out on the streets again.

----------------------------------------------

An unknown amount of weeks passed by, during that time Danny had found an old shack not to far off from a small stream and bridge.

From there he stole the odd blanket or clothing that were left in the wind to dry, making a nest withing the rotting boards. Danny manged to get his hands on a few shirts and shorts that would fit his smaller body better, yet kept the bloodied hospital gown, mostly as a way to cover up a big hole in the wall.

During his raids to get resources Danny did get spotted many more times, especially when trying to snach food, but so far hasn't been chased further then a block or two.

Danny had quickly found out two major factors of this new place; firstly he couldn't read anything, everything looked like werid squiggles and lines, that might be due to him not being good at reading in the first place or the fact he only knew how to read/write ghost since that's what he did to pass the time. Secondly was there were heros and villains, and he wasn't sure who he was more scared of.

Heros were easy to spot since they wore costumes and announced themselves, villains were more subtle most of the time until they start causing trouble.

Danny had a few run in with the latter, mostly just jerks who think a kid would be an easy target. They were proven wrong quickly when Danny knocked them out by barely trying and dragging them to what he thought was a police station.

Heros were much more tricky, Danny mainly blots whenever he sees any, same with police in person, because what if they worked with the GIW? What would happen if they find out Danny was nothing but an abomination, a crime against life and death.

He wasn't going to risk it.

Yet unaware to Danny due to his adventures he had been spotted multiple times by civilian and a few heros too, one or two may have caught a picture of him back when he was still in his medical gown. And with him naturally running whenever a hero was spotted things were getting suspicious.

Heros and officers were alerted to the presents of a young boy who's case was looking scarily similar to another.

Which lead to Danny's main problem now...

He keeps getting chased by heroes!

Danny mostly avoids them by phasing thorough buildings but it was getting annoying. He started to use his intangiblity, floating, and ice abilities more, he didn't use his ecto blasts since he didn't want to cause that much harm. So far he's been stalked and chased by a werid guy made out of wood, a cowboy, and a rabbit lady just this week! That's not counting the police trying to corner him.

The only ones now that weren't giving him any trouble were normal people and the odd villan.

All Danny wanted to do is eat a good sandwich and maybe relax a bit.

_____________________________________

Going to stop here for tonight but might add more later, any suggestions on how to make this story better is appreciated too.

man some of my old mutuals could’ve helped spreading the donation info at least once so that me, my family and my people have lesser probability of dying within the next week, but keeping cute blog aesthetic seems of higher priority.

if i stay alive, i will pay tenfold for your silence.

for everyone else - i’m truly thankful for your support and donations, if i could i would bow to the ground before you. i want you to know that your material support is extremely and so massively appreciated by us, these things really make ukrainians feeling not left alone.

old khyilo aka useless hitler parody gets desperate, threatens nuclear missiles, but whatever. his kadyrov fucks were literally burned alive and smoked the moment they approached hostemel, where they destroyed our beautiful mriya. the next days will be compete and utter hell of shelling but after that we will send them to hell ourselves. keep helping us - we will stand till the end.

glory to fucking ukraine.

[ 365 Days of SasuHina || Day Three Hundred Thirty-Four: Street People ] [ Uchiha Sasuke, Hyūga Hinata ] [ SasuHina, homelessness, blindness ] [ Verse: Best Years of Your Life ] [ AO3 Link ]

They met quite by accident.

After the death of his parents and the disappearance of his brother, Sasuke was tossed from family member to family member. But wherever he went, ill luck seemed to follow.

The final straw was his aunt - his mother’s sister - facing a rather sudden death. Her son, Shisui, was already in college several states away when she took Sasuke in at the age of fifteen. For months, things seemed...normal. Manami had claimed she didn’t believe in superstitions like so many others in their family. According to her, they’d always been a magnet for misfortune.

But not long after his sixteenth birthday...Sasuke lost the last safe harbor he’d been afforded. After military service that took her leg, raising a son by herself, and mourning the death of her younger sister...Manami was killed ever so simply in a car wreck.

...she wasn’t even driving. A pedestrian struck on the sidewalk by a drunk driver. Her lacking limb meant she was too slow.

...too slow.

Sasuke found himself with nowhere else to go. Shisui couldn’t take him, and Sasuke refused his apologies.

“I’m not your responsibility. Don’t give up on your future for my sake. Don’t quite school. I’ll figure something out.”

‘Something’ turned out to be couch surfing for a while. But that was soon given up when his dropping out of highschool soured his reputation to many a parent of many a friend. 

And so...Sasuke was officially homeless.

Shisui, refusing to do nothing, had given Sasuke his car, claiming he was getting by in the big city without it. It was his only home, a place he could sleep, live, and travel in.

...but that didn’t change the fact that he was alone.

He worked odd jobs as best he could, but few wanted him around. A high school dropout, homeless, and with a bit of an attitude...he wasn’t exactly prime worker material.

Lounging in his car one night, he tried his best to think up some way to make money. He just needed enough to scrape by. Once he turned eighteen, he was sure, he could try to get his GED. Try to start putting pieces of a life back together. And Shisui would be back to help him out. But at the moment...he was stuck.

...and then it hit him.

Literally.

Rolling over in the back seat, he gave a cry and a curse as something along the rear dash tumbled off and clunk him on the head. Scowling and rubbing at the sore spot, he spotted one of the few things he’d managed to keep with him.

His guitar.

...of course…!

The next morning, he found a decent parking lot in a grocery store nearby one of his hometown’s parks. Locking the cart and jogging across a few intersections, he found a bench sat along a fountain. Sighing to steady his nerves, he placed a cap on the ground before him...and started to play.

Admittedly, he was a little rusty - he hadn’t picked the thing up since Manami died. But he knew quite a few tunes, and after a while to warm up...was actually doing pretty well. A few people stopped to listen, some even coming up to throw a few spare coins or bills in his hat, which earned them sheepish, grateful smiles.

And that’s when she showed up.

Drawn by the music, a girl his age carefully maneuvered through the crowd, stopping at the rim of people and listening. This guy was actually pretty good, she couldn’t help but think.

And then he started playing a song she knew...and it was her turn to have an idea. Cane in hand as she carefully guided herself to the edge of the fountain, Hinata sat along the lip...and began to sing along.

Startled, Sasuke had actually fumbled a few notes, looking to his unexpected companion and earning amused laughter from his little crowd. She was angled away from him, just...sitting there singing.

And honestly? She was...really good!

Gawking at her a moment longer, Sasuke eventually reverted his focus, finishing up the song and earning applause. Several people came forward and dropped money, and guilt quickly bloomed in his gut. Scooping up the hat and muttering thanks, he approached the girl, still sitting along the fountain’s edge.

“Hey, uh…” How to address this… “Look, you obviously earned some of this. You want a few bucks?”

“Oh, no - I’m fine. I...I hope I didn’t interrupt…?”

“No! Actually I think that really helped,” he admitted, spare hand itching his neck. Watching her, he realized she wasn’t looking at him, instead staring a bit over his shoulder with oddly-pale eyes.

...wait a minute…

Glancing to her side, he saw the telltale white cane. And then it all fit together.

“Are...are you blind?”

As soon as he blurted it, he went red in embarrassment. That was so rude, he did not just do that...!

“I-I mean -?”

But she just laughed. “I am. And d-don’t worry, I get that a lot. I have minimum vision - I can perceive s-some light, but...otherwise, I’m unable to see most things. Hence the cane.”

“...wow. Uh...I’ve never met someone blind before.” Thus he...really had no idea how to react. “...you...you sing really well.”

“Thank you. I took choir when I was in school.”

Sasuke’s brow furrowed. But she looked his age… “...have you already graduated?”

“No...I had to quit. I...ran away from home a few months ago. For a while I stayed with a friend, but...it didn’t, um...d-didn’t work out. So now I’m doing this solo.”

“Blind?!”

Another laugh. “Well...so far it’s actually h-helped. People tend to be pretty sympathetic. But...it’s still difficult, yes.”

Sasuke scrambled to think of something - someone like her shouldn’t be navigating all of this alone! “W-well...I have a car! If...you need someplace to crash, I’d be fine with it. I can’t just leave you by yourself. That’s not right.”

Her lips curled in a somber smile. “Taking pity on me?”

“N-no, I just -!”

“I’m just teasing you. May I...ask you your name?”

“...Sasuke. Sasuke Uchiha.”

“I’m Hinata Hyūga. Nice to meet you.”

A bit of an awkward silence bloomed.

“...y’know, I...was serious. If you need someplace to go -?”

“I’m sure you’re crowded enough, but I appreciate it.”

“No, really. I can’t just walk away. My mom would kill me. Just…” A nervous hand ran back through his hair...and then he asked, “...what if we just...did this together?”

“What?”

“Y’know...all this. And the performing. I’ve only been here an hour but there’s at least twenty bucks in here. If we, y’know...pooled our talents, I bet we’d do even better. Maybe even make enough to scrape by. And that way neither of us have to go it alone.”

Hearing he was serious, Hinata hesitated. “...you really...want to help me?”

“Hell yeah I do. I know it’d work. We can at least try it today. See what happens. Either way, I’ll buy you some dinner for your help if you decide to leave. How about it?”

Milky eyes blinked, clearly taken aback. “...all right. Let’s try it…!”

And so, they put their heads together, plotting out songs they both knew. The rest of the afternoon was spent doing slightly-shaky duets, Sasuke filling in gaps to let Hinata’s voice rest.

By the end of the day...they’d made over a hundred dollars.

“Man, this is the way to do it!” Sasuke couldn’t help but whoop. “Here, this is your half...want to go get something to eat?”

“Oh, yes please...I’m s-starving!”

One round of fast food later, they made their way back to Sasuke’s car. “Well...it’s not much, but for now, it’s home.”

“I’d be happy to see it,” Hinata lightly joked. Carefully, she felt her way into the passenger seat. “...well, I suppose I’ve broken my promise to Father about g-getting into a car with strangers.”

Sitting in the driver’s side, Sasuke just snorted.

“So you sleep in here…?”

“Yeah. That’s about the only time I’m in it, honestly. Move it when I have to, but otherwise I’m out and about trying to scrounge up money. Food. A shower. Stuff like that. I’ve managed okay so far.”

“...may I ask...w-why you’re homeless?”

“Lost my parents when I was seven. Was traded around by family, but...weird stuff kept happening. Last straw was my aunt dying in a car accident. Hit by a drunk driver.”

“Oh no…”

“My cousin’s away at college, said I could have his car. Took some finagling to get it in my name, and paying for gas and insurance makes things hard, but...so far, so okay. Shisui - my cousin - says he’ll come back and let me room with him once he finished up school. He’s going for his masters right now. Another year or so and he’ll be back.”

“Wow…”

“...what about you? You said you ran away…?”

Hinata gave a small nod. “...my father has always been strict, but...the older I got, the worse his treatment of me became. He treated my condition as a burden. I wasn’t the p-perfect daughter he wanted. A friend offered to let me stay with her, so I left...but her parents ended up saying I couldn’t stay. I’ve stayed in a shelter most of the time since. But, um...it’s not ideal.”

“Neither is living in a car.”

“No...but I guess n-none of this is easy. Being street people, I mean. I could go back to the shelter, but…” She seemed to dim. “...it can be...unpleasant.”

“...well, my offer still stands. It’s not grand, but it’s something. I bet we can make enough to get by pretty easy, between the two of us. And we wouldn’t be alone.”

Absently, Hinata slowly turned her cane in her grip, thinking. “...all right. I-I’ll stay.”

“Just until my cousin comes back. Then you can bunk with us.”

“B-but -?!”

“The way I see it, we’re friends now,” Sasuke replied airily, clearly ignoring her refusal. “And as your friend, I’ll just have to let you couch surf...once I’ve got a couch. But couches aren’t good for sleeping, so...it’ll just have to be a bed. Then you and I can catch up on studies, get a GED, and then...go from there. Until then, we give the folks a little song and dance for our dinner, huh?”

After a pause, Hinata just giggled softly. “...all right. It’s a deal.”

                                                          .oOo.

     So this is...very random. While the term 'street people' doesn't HAVE to refer to homeless people, it's the most typical example. I've had friends go through homelessness before, but know very little about it personally, so I didn't want to come off as either glorifying or ignorant. Hopefully I managed that much ^^;      Anyway, uh...not sure how to really extrapolate about this one. I likely got a lot wrong, lol - but I tried. I just like the thought of them pairing up and helping each other out, using their talents to scrape by until they can (hopefully) get a second chance. Probably won't continue this one, but it was neat, I guess!      But it's late, I'm very tired, and I better get to bed, so I'll leave it there. Thanks for reading!

Politics

Someone on Facebook asked me if I’m one of the “we are mad trump won team.” Let me tell you that yes, I am. I very much am. If you aren't a multimillionaire, you should be, too, because he's already screwing you over. He's looking to take away either all of your healthcare or make what you do have more expensive so his rich cronies can get richer. He cut mortgage aid on the FIRST day in office to make housing and other real estate more expensive. He's a real estate mogul, and stands to directly profit from screwing the little guy. He's willing to cost you money both directly and indirectly via his pipe-dream wall. Both taxes and the cost of goods from Mexico go up, and it won't keep anyone out anyway. We'd have to arm the whole border, which would push us right into going to war against not only Mexico, but probably everyone else who would stand to lose from such an agreement, like China, Russia, and most of the UN. Every single decree we've seen from him, and are going to see from him, are about dollars going right into his pocketbook. Let's talk about the Muslim Ban for a second. Which countries are on the list? Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Yemen. How many refugees have caused death on American soil from these countries? 0. Not a single one. In fact, the last time refugees suggested a real threat to the American way of life, the Cherokee side of my family were being slaughtered and enslaved by them. So why the ban? There are a few reasons, but none of them are good. Using panic and fear to increase personal power. Using economic pressure to coerce poor countries into accepting skewed deals. Just plain hatred of brown people. Who knows? Well, now that we're depressed, let's talk about the ACA, or "Obamacare." Millions of people are going to lose their healthcare if the ACA is repealed. If people lose their only access to healthcare, they die. Period, there's no way around it. How high could the death toll be from repealing the ACA? Well, before the ACA was enacted, Somewhere between 40 and 65 THOUSAND Americans died every year due to inadequate health coverage. Afterward, the number dropped sharply, but it's still too early to get a reliable estimate. The number is anywhere between 12 and 36 thousand. That said, any number greater than zero means that the Republican party is literally more dangerous to the American populace than Muslim refugees. They will have murdered, without hyperbole murdered, thousands of innocent Americans, and people are cheering for that because they don't understand the ramifications of what they're doing. They're just bucking the rules of the last president because he was liberal or he was brown skinned or he had a foreign sounding name or whatever. I'd much rather we spend the money that we're currently spending on a pipe dream on infrastructure, education, and yes, healthcare. I didn't support Hillary Clinton, I supported Bernie Sanders, because I believe that all people need to stand together. I believe that everyone should be treated equally, rich and poor, white and black and hispanic and asian and other, straight and gay and trans and asexual and  apache helicopter and whatever else people are calling themselves nowadays. The law should be written so that the variables that make us individual people do not matter beyond the social scope. Rich people should not get lighter sentences than poor people, and the same goes for respectively white and black, but that's exactly what happens, no matter what you think of the now polarized word "privilege" (frankly, I hate it, because it boils down a complex set of socioeconomic interactions to "if you're a white male people treat you better," which is just not always true.) Society doesn't need to change much to make the lives of everyone better. We live in the information age, and could be on the cusp of true greatness via the elimination of poverty through education and the free exchange of information. I believe that the floor of poverty should be lifted so that the lives of everyone gets better, not the ceiling raised so that the top becomes further unattainable to more people. I believe that food, water, shelter, education, and the ability to stay alive if you get sick should be rights unalienable to all people, no matter how much it costs multi-billion dollar corporations or the billionaire elite, or even the regular joes and janes. Life is by far more important money, and if the taxes on my already impoverished wages need to go up, then so be it, but the rich need to pay their share as well instead of hoarding the money in the sick zero sum game of keep away that we're already playing. Adjusted for inflation and cost of living increases, we the actual working people are already earning less than half of the buying power that the minimum wage was worth 50 years ago. We're literally being driven backward economically because of the insane wealth disparity in this country. On top of that, we already have a huge number of democratic socialist/outright socialist programs in place in the United States. Everyone knows about Medicaid, Medicare, SNAP (food stamps,) and WIC as socialist policies, but the roads you drive on, the schools your kids go to, the free parks, libraries, and hell, even the infrastructure that companies profit from, like power lines and water and sewer pipes are paid for via tax money. On top of that on top of that again, a seemingly endless stream of economists have stated that the move to single payer universal health care saves the average American over $1,000 a year. I'd be okay with over $1k in my pocket, and the savings to each and every one of us, as well as the Federal government, could be seriously monumental if we took the further step of regulating the price gouging pharmaceutical companies to keep costs in check and reforming hospitals to keep prices down. The savings to the Federal government after five years are in the high double digit to low triple digit millions of dollars a year. That said, the current administration wants to fleece us for what little we've got while they sail away on a solid gold boat, to hell with making everyone's lives better and actually improving the overall economy by giving the lowest economic class the ability to put money back into it. So am I mad that Trump won? Hell yes, I'm mad. I'm mad that an utterly abysmal businessman (the guy doesn't pay taxes because he lost almost a BILLION dollars in a single year. Somehow that makes him smart. He has dozens of failed businesses in his wake and settled a fraud lawsuit for $25 Million. The guy couldn't even sell steak,) appealed to the worst in people. I'm mad that the new president of my country, MY figurehead, went on air about how he would walk in on underage teenage girls changing, on purpose, and his staff would force them to dote on him in various states of undress. I'm mad that he openly states that he respects no one. I'm mad that he treats people like property, stating that because he is rich, he could do whatever he wanted to whoever he wanted with no consequences. I'm mad because he's a horrifically bigoted person, and always has been. It's not just calling out Mexico. It's stating that he doesn't want "blacks" handling his money, that he'd rather give it to the jews. I'm mad that he tried to impress Billy Bush with "locker room talk." Even if he were in a locker room, that speech wouldn't be acceptable. In every locker room I've ever been in (and having been a martial artist for a very long time, that's quite a few,) if a guy, ANY guy, bragged about sexually violating a woman without her consent, they'd have their throat punched in before they could say another word. Thing about that is, he wasn't even in a locker room. He was at a TV taping where he knew he was being heard by microphones and didn't CARE who heard him. He is nothing more than a pandering demagogue who appealed to the scared old WASP crowd who believes that they're being oppressed now that the playing field is finally starting to level a little bit. Why am I mad? He spouted nothing but bullshit, and it worked. I've never had much faith in humanity, but I've never been quite this sickened by the American people, or been quite so ready to tear down the establishment and start over, either. Why am I mad? We had legitimate candidates that could make the country better, even if you or I didn't like them, but the vast majority of the states decided to elect a man who has one redeeming quality: money that he was born into and has lost most of. Good luck with your reality star. He's going down hard if he makes it to four years without getting himself removed from office.

Bug Out Bag Essentials: Necessary Items for Your BOB

Bug Out Bag Essentials

With every bug out bag, there are certain essential items that you need to have in order to have what I would consider to be a functional bug out kit.

What are bug out bag essentials? Bug out bag essentials are those things that should be in every bug out bag. They are the bare minimum requirements for a bug out bag to be viable. The following items are necessary for any bug out bag:

Backpack

Water

Food

Shelter

First Aid Kit

Looking at the list above, you’ll notice that it’s a lot shorter than other bug out bag lists that you’ll find on the internet. It’s even shorter than my bug out bag article. Let’s look at why this list is so short. [wc_toggle title=“Table of Contents” padding=“” border_width=“” class=“” layout=“box”]

Bug Out Bag Essentials

The Minimum That Every Bug Out Bag Should Contain

Backpack

What to look for in a backpack

Water

Food

Shelter

First Aid Kit

Items to Add to Your Bug Out Bag to Make it Better

Is a Bug Out Bag Necessary

Conclusion

[/wc_toggle]

The Minimum That Every Bug Out Bag Should Contain

There are certain items that every bug out bag needs to have in order to be effective and provide you with the minimum things that you’ll need when you’re forced to bug out. These are:

The backpack itself

Water and a water filter

Food to keep you going

Shelter to protect you from the environment

Personal first aid kit

This list may seem like it’s too short, especially if you’ve been looking at other bug out bag articles. Just keep in mind that we’re discussing the bare minimums that you need in a bug out bag. These items form the base that you can then build from.

Backpack

The backpack is the thing that the rest of your bug out bag is going to revolve around. In one way it’s the least important part of your bug out bag, and to a certain extent, it’s the most important. That’s probably a little confusing but it’s the truth.

The backpack is the least important part of your BOB because it doesn’t do much to keep you alive and moving toward your goal of getting to your bug out location. It just holds the other items that you’ve put together that are supposed to do those things.

The reason that you can consider it the most important is that it’s the one item that’s in contact with your body the entire time that you’re traveling. You don’t need to get the most high speed and expensive backpack out there, but if you really skimp on it, it can cause you to get fatigued a lot more quickly or even rub you raw on the extreme side of things.

What to look for in a backpack

The specific type of backpack that you’re going to want is going to depend on where you’re bugging out from.

If you live in the city, or even in the suburbs, you probably want to look for a backpack that’s common in that kind of environment. Ask yourself these questions when choosing a backpack for bugging out of the city:

What type of backpack would someone take to the gym or carry to work?

What colors or patterns won’t draw attention to me while I’m walking down the street?

Is this backpack large enough to hold everything I need, but small enough to not attract too much attention on the street?

Will this backpack still work well once I’ve made it out of the city and into a rural environment?

In an urban environment choosing a pack is based on not drawing attention to yourself and blending in with the crowds of people that are likely to form in the event of a major disaster. You don’t want to end up being the target of criminals or those that are desperate for food and water.

If you live in a rural environment you’re going to have different needs than someone in the city. You can focus almost entirely on function and don’t really need to worry about drawing too much attention to yourself. Camo patterns and oversized packs will draw less scrutiny in the country than they would in the city. Ask yourself these questions when choosing a backpack for bugging out in rural areas:

Is the material strong enough to stand up to rough use?

Does the color/camo pattern of the pack match the areas that I’ll be bugging out in?

In a rural environment choosing a pack is all about blending in with the environment and being strong enough to not tear if it gets snagged on brush and trees if you happen to be moving through a lot of vegetation.

Water

Running out of water is one of the quickest ways to die in a survival situation. For your bug out bag, you’re going to want to have at least two 1 liter bottles full of water and a way to filter more water as you come across it.

I like having metal water containers so I can boil water in them if I have to, but it’s really up to you. Any kind of Nalgene bottle or collapsable canteen will work as well.

For water filtration, you can go with something as inexpensive as a LifeStraw and be just fine. Katadyn and Sawyer also make good water filters that are great in a bug out bag.

Food

Food isn’t as important in a bug out bag as you may think. You can go for a long time without food and survive, but not having food will make cause you to start feeling weak after a few days.

Keeping some ER Bars in your pack is probably good enough to keep you going through your entire bug out, but you can always add more food if you want. Try to stay away from these types of foods in your bug out bag:

Food that needs to be cooked

Food that needs to have water added to it

Canned foods

Try to choose foods that don’t need to be prepared. The more time that you spend time cooking, the less time you’re moving toward your bug out location. Snacks and energy bars that you can eat while you continue walking are good choices.

Shelter

Having some kind of shelter is important to every BOB. How important it is will depend on the type of environment that you live in.

Shelter doesn’t have to be a tent, and probably shouldn’t be a tent for most people. A simple poncho is probably good enough for most people traveling in warmer climates. Colder climates are going to take more shelter.

A quality tarp is a good multi-function shelter. It can function as a tent, poncho or even be used to catch rainwater. As temperatures drop, you can add a lightweight sleeping bag in addition to a poncho or tarp.

Keep in mind that your clothing is also part of your shelter. Your jacket and any other layers may be enough to keep you warm overnight without adding the extra bulk and size of a sleeping bag.

First Aid Kit

You need to have a first aid kit with you to treat any cuts, scrapes or wounds you may pick up while you’re bugging out. Small cuts can easily get infected and any wound that is bleeding obviously needs immediate attention.

My preferred loadout for when I want a good all-around first aid kit and the ability to treat trauma is the Adventure Medical .5 Kit, the Adventure Medical Trauma Pak, and the SWAT-T Tourniquet.

You can add more to your first aid kit, but these are the minimums that you should have with you.

Items to Add to Your Bug Out Bag to Make it Better

That’s the minimum amount of gear that you need to have a bug out bag. Consider adding the following to round out your BOB and make it more effective:

Extra socks

Headlamp

Knife

Baby wipes and toothbrush/toothpaste

Lighter

Maps of the local area/GPS

Signal mirror

550 cord

Shemagh

Is a Bug Out Bag Necessary

One of the common questions that pops up every time I talk about building a bug out bag is, “Do you need a bug out bag?”

Asking if a bug out bag is needed is certainly a valid question. After all, it can be a pretty big initial expense if you’re just getting into prepping and don’t have some of the things that you need.

I really do think that having a bug out bag is a necessity, but it doesn’t have to break the bank. You can scrounge most of the things that you need from around the house and anything that you don’t already have, like a good first aid kit, are things that you should have around anyway.

Look at your bug out bag as the base of your other preparations. Pretty much everything in there is just as useful when bugging in as it is when you’re bugging out!

Conclusion

Bugging out should be approached in a similar manner as a military-style patrol. Take the minimum amount of gear that you need to accomplish the mission. Can you take more than that? You can but everything that you add to a bug out bag makes your trip that much more difficult and miserable.

Nice to have items don’t really have a place in a bug out bag. Those items should be at your house or prepositioned at your bug out location, not in a bag on your back as you try to escape a disaster of some kind.

Bug Out Bag Essentials: Necessary Items for Your BOB was first published on: Ready Lifestyle

Bug Out Bag Essentials: Necessary Items for Your BOB published first on https://readylifesytle.tumblr.com

Places to Shoot in Bangkok Part 6: Khlong Toei Slum (Worst Ghetto in Bangkok)

Chromacoma back at it again this month with a guide of a more serious and gritty nature.  Following some recent requests, I have dedicated this month’s entry to the slum area of Khlong Toei district (also often seen written as ‘Klong Toey’).

You might recall my saying back in the Chinatown guide that you don’t need to go to Chinatown to shoot pictures of Thai Chinese people. Likewise, you don’t need to go to Khlong Toei if you want to see and take pictures of a real Thai urban slum, they are everywhere. Just look out from many high up vantage points anywhere in the city and look for the tiny little areas featuring tightly packed, wooden-walled lean to shelter type homes with corrugated tin roofs and dogs running around everywhere and that is just as likely a slum by any other name. It’s just that the Khlong Toei ‘slum’ is MUCH, MUCH worse than anywhere else. It has long been known by Bangkokians to be very much the epitome of the word and is perhaps most often cited as a typical worst-case example of such an area in Bangkok. It is famous for its extreme poverty and resulting issues such as high crime and drug abuse, which is off the charts.

That said, I believe that (at least in the case of men) it’s not especially unsafe in broad daylight as a Westerner as long as you conduct yourself humbly and with some respect for the inhabitants of such dwellings. For women, you probably would also be fine but I feel that I can’t quite recommend it to a solo female photographer in full conscience. Either go with a guy or at least go as a group of women together, I am genuinely sorry if that upsets any female readers but I want to be fully responsible for the quality of the advice I give here so that would be my honest gut feeling about it. I couldn't feel entirely comfortable recommending any woman I know to go there on a solo tip. I'm sure there are lots of Western women volunteers who have worked at many of the charity foundations in the area and found no problems roaming around there whilst they were doing their bit as volunteers or whatever but I personally think that a little caution is needed, especially once you get off the busier main routes and head deeper down into the less travelled parts (by farangs) of Khlong Toei. 

With all of the above out of the way, you might feel that this is gonna be a really scary venture into a dangerous ghetto and it CERTAINLY can be (especially at night when I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to anybody really) but in many ways it can seem a deceptively different scenario. For starters, due to its relatively close proximity to the Sukhumvit  (especially Ekamai and Thong Lo areas) and Rama 4 roads (mainstream Bangkok) and also perhaps because of its infamy, you do actually get some more adventurous Westerners here on their SE Asia adventure trip of a lifetime deciding to go and walk around the area. There’s also sometimes a volunteer worker or ‘voluntourist’ to be found doing their bit here and there as well, fair play to them. So, it’s not as though you are going to blend in any time soon but the locals there have definitely seen the odd backpacker with a camera before, believe me. As with anywhere else in Thailand, if you approach slowly and calmly with a smile, some people will even be a little smiley and friendly in return, despite the obviously huge gap between their lot in life and yours. This can be humbling.

HOWEVER, in more than two decades in Thailand, this is the only place where, when trying to walk down random alleys and walkways, the locals have politely tried to stop me…not to prohibit me from entering per se but rather to try and advise me that it really wasn’t perhaps in my best interests (from a personal safety point of view) to do so. That is something I hadn’t ever really experienced (or can at least remember experiencing) in Thailand before. So, think about doing your own risk assessment for this maybe because it's very much real life, not some reality TV show.

On this trip, I saw used needles and syringes lying around discarded as rubbish on the floor (again, I have never seen that anywhere in Thailand)  where children were playing. I saw some of those children playing with rubbish as their toys, some of them were stinking to high heaven as they had soiled themselves and their clearly drunk or high mother right next to them didn’t seem to want to clean them up. I walked past people openly smoking either 'yaabaa' or 'ice' methamphetamines in front of me in broad daylight, as the sickly sweet chemical smells wafted into my face, they carried on like zombies regardless. People are shooting up drugs here with needles any time day and night. This is not a 'nice' place.

All of the above seems more relevant when you consider that to see the real Khlong Toei slum, you need to be off any of the main roads and waaaay down these alleys and back streets and train tracks (!) wandering around and going as deep as you dare into the labyrinthine networks of poverty stricken walkthroughs. You might well find yourself standing on top of the old train line which runs almost right through people’s little shacks (in the main photo at the top of this post, those tiny wooden and cardboard boxes on the train lines in the photos are where I found people living and sleeping!) or you might get stuck up a dead end and need to follow a local to see whether their route will bring you back out to some kind of civilization again. It’s fun but in all honesty, it’s not perhaps for the faint of heart. This is also a time to watch out for any rabid, and diseased soi dogs that might be on the attack. The potential danger from the locals also extends to those with four legs! It’s best to be confident if you turn a corner and find yourself in the midst of a pack of them as the local Thai strays often smell fear, and then things can get tricky very quickly. Make like a local Thai and keep on pushing dead straight ahead and show them who’s boss. It can take a bit of nerve at times, if you panic and get stuck, wait for a passing Thai and walk quickly alongside them, they know which dogs can be easily brushed aside and which ones you might want give a wider berth to.

It’s not the best place for normal lenses. It is certainly doable but you can really benefit from a 35mm or even a 28mm for this mission. There is a lot of shadow play and contrasting bright and dark scenery to deal with. In terms of equipment and technique, it has a lot in common with the Chinatown approach I guess. Zone focusing is highly recommended. Film shooters need ISO 400 flexibility at a minimum I would say and take an extra roll or two beyond what you might be expecting to use. Also be forewarned that one problem I have had is that in certain parts of the slum, the sheer smell of all the litter and refuse and waste can be a little overpowering at times. It’s quite an assault to the senses in more ways than one. People are basically living right in and on top of a huge, rat infested rubbish dump. In this shot below where the young woman is salvaging something from the large open skip, she was (I believe) trying to collect up old aluminum drinks cans for money but I couldn’t get any closer as I was already dry heaving, I mean quite literally convulsing and looking to get away from the stench and sheer squalor at that point as I had been in the area for about an hour longer than I had anticipated.

I did find some people who seemed quite happy in their humble little slum homes as they worked away doing some sewing or running a tiny little shop that caters to the residents of their particular little alleyway. It’s not all sad people. This is the kind of place where you’ll easily stumble on a crowd of guys having an afternoon heavy drinking session of whisky or beers around a table, perhaps whilst an illegal card or dice game is going down. Just be cool and make like Dionne Warwick….walk on by.

Of course, you could opt to sit down and take the drink offered to you but it can all get a bit sticky when you later wish to untangle yourself from the mess you might end up in. Of course, many backpackers do this and then take photos of their newfound ‘Thai drinking buddies’ and go home with tales of how they personally found the ‘real Thailand’ etc.  Hey, who am I to judge? Whatever you wanna do and at least it’s as a result of going your own way and meeting people and seeing places that are not part and parcel of the standard tourist package, right?

Also, in terms of culture shock (and especially if you are on holiday here), you’ll likely be needing a steely resolve emotionally when you see how people (especially kids) are living their lives in such an area. As with many capital cities in ‘developing countries’ (whatever that means anyway), this slum area is within a fairly close proximity to huge, high end shopping malls and ‘the haves’ living their comfortable lives. This little photographic mission is more of a photojournalistic opportunity in essence really. It’s very much the gritty and certainly shitty end of the stick and it’s out there for anybody to go and see and record with a camera. I highly recommend black and white film for this kind of thing but then again I would say that of course. Use whatever you’ve got with you (the best camera is always the one with you, or so they say) and really try to squeeze the best out of it and yourself.

By the way, ‘Khlong’ means a canal, and ‘Toei’ is a flower sometimes used in Thai food and drinks, I think the English name is ‘Pandan’ but don’t hold me to that 100%. I know what it looks and tastes like, I just don’t know for sure if I’ve got that right or not. The ‘T’ in ‘Toei’ isn’t really a ‘t’ sound at all but rather a combination of what it would sound like if you tried to say ‘t’ with more of a ‘d’ sound. I am trying to make it simple for non Thai speakers to at least attempt to say it correctly.

Taxi drivers know it, assuming you can say it correctly.  Nearest MRT station is Klong Toei. The slum itself is actually in several areas and so really should be pluralized into ‘slums’. Generally however, when people talk of the Khlong Toei Slum, they are talking about the biggest, most concentrated area of it and this is where you can also find a charity or foundation or two. Here below is a map cutaway for you to use on a device and show to a taxi driver, it has both English and Thai on it. Anywhere within the red arrows outer perimeter is pretty much different shades of full on Klong Toei ghetto but you should explore randomly within that area as much as possible, it’s almost different every time you go. There are some key landmarks also in English on that map in case you are very ‘directionally challenged’ (or your taxi driver is!), for example Bangkok University. I hope that this blog entry proves useful and that your day there goes well. I never normally say this but…good luck!

For those that don’t make it there, this post at least features some of my work from a recent trip there to give you just a glimpse. For anyone who is bothered, these were with a Rolleiflex and Ilford Delta 400 as I recall.

CCP