I was just thinking that it'd be something that could be converted to a ritual tool quickly.

Heh heh, my kinda folks.

People were watching Project Runway in the same room as me recently. The contestants were at one point asked to design clothes for the year 2055. I hated all of the contestants and their creations, but all would have been forgiven if they'd come up with one of these.

Remember, beat up shreds of 20th century finery mixed with chunks of military surplus never goes out of fashion.

One thing I do feel proud of/insistent about is the omnipresent canteen. I figure that in a postapocalyptic world, you want to carry potable water with you at all times. Maybe even as a bluff; if you don't have any water on you, having a canteen obviously displayed makes you theoretically more trustworthy, you're not about to go murder someone for water.

So to veer right back into silliness, it's knowing where your towel is.

Yeah. Real life examples I know of are weapons; the Polish thing about maces as symbols of authority, such that a lot of maces from the Kingdom of Poland are really not usable (and during Poland's brief stint as a major military force in Europe, there were enough guns around this didn't matter), and American advisors carrying .45s for the purpose of being recognized as authorities by South Vietnamese troops.

Yemen and a couple of other Gulf states have those daggers in a similar way, as I recall. I remember reading an interview where a guy said it was like wearing a tie in America.

Jeez, and I can't believe I forgot this; late Edo period and early Meiji restoration, when a lot of samurai were poor but still obliged to keep up appearances. There were some historical/archetypical bluffs about samurai sewing trim on kimonos to make it look like they were wearing more layers and therefore wealthier, or constantly chewing toothpicks so that even though they were hungry it looked like they'd just eaten. That's what that visual was supposed to be, in Yojimbo.

I didn't know that about the toothpick. That's pretty cool. It's also a testament to how we all have a certain impulse to conform, to keep up appearances.

awesome! =D

If the nuclear apocalypse isn't a good enough excuse to wear a top hat, I don't know what is!

"Is that a cutting board for a shield?"

"Aye."

"Isn't that inviting a certain amount of abuse?"

"Aye, but when's the last time you saw somebody cut through one?"

". . . clever."

The clothing style here sort of reminds me of Tank Girl. Although the people you drew don't necessarily look Australian.

That made me think, "What does an Australian look like?" and my mind offered up Crocodile Dundee and the cast of Dog's Days of Summer...

The first image that comes to my mind is an Aboriginal with a surf board. ._.

It's a little-known fact that Aboriginals were taught surfing by the Space Gods of Atlantimumuria, thus preserving the knowledge of the sacred curl through the fires of cataclysm.

I adore that, even in the post-Apocalyptic world, operating systems remain a topic to war over.