What would a more realistic aesthetic for a post-apocalyptic scenario be?

Definitely hobo camp

I'd think less milsurp and more hiker. The survivors would be the ones who got lucky enough to not be there when things went down and were quick enough to react that they were able to set things up fast enough.

So probably an eclectic mix of engineers, hunters, military, gardeners, and people who grow weed out of a trailer

I have used this sort of ascetic, only white America

Africa.
Technicals and ak47s everywhere.

Ay! That's Johnny Mad Dog. It's good but entirely in French.

It really just works, doesn't it?

>tfw your gang will never be half as badass as these guys

...

Depends a LOOOOT on how long ago the apocalypse happened

Third world dictator shitholes.

at first, people will just use whatever clothes they can get that is sturdy, durable etc, but eventually as time passes, clothes decay and new cultures form you'll start seeing some weird tribal shit. What that would be?
Impossible to say.
There was an art installation where a bunch of people lived like a bunch of post apocalyptic people for a while, makign their clothes outta trash and stuff, that might give some insight. I'll see if I can find it.

Oh wow I found that super-fast.
the8thday.tumblr.com/
Now I have no choice but to get back to work

...

click ARCHIVE to see everything.
For those of you who dont know how to use tumblr.

Of all the post apocalyptic media I've consumed over the years, The Postman struck me as what seemed most realistic.

Good guys wear old clothes mixed with new self sewn shit, and bad guys wear practical leather threads.

The shit with clans and tatoos and rules to challenge the leader all forming during a singele generation sounded like a bullshit form a post apocalyptic media not something realistic, though the movie itself were good.

Why is he wearing American Football padding if he lives in Australia?

I was just talking about the clothes and gear in general, though.

The clan culture seems to have been forced upon them by Betlehem himself. Maybe the book elaborates on that. Haven't read it.

I think the Last of Us has the most realistic approach, with the military controlling everything.

Ding, ding, ding. If even a small percentage of the military survived this is the most likely scenario.

They have a command structure, a hierarchical culture, superior firepower, more supplies, support from the more traditional members of the surviving population, and are likely to step into supervisory roles early in the aftermath of any major disaster.

Are you telling me you don't sell football anywhere in Australia?

Australia is like the one other country in the world that likes American Football.

I always thought that regarding a realism approach, Europeans (mostly Slavs) seem to do it most faithfully. Americans tend to favor the Fallout/Mad Max aesthetic, whereas you have other stuff like STALKER (not really post-apoc, but close enough technically) or Metro (venturing of into a bit of stylized but still mostly realistic) predominantly from the lands of Vodka.

that is because we live in a post-apocalyptic setting since the day we are born

>Europeans (mostly Slavs) seem to do it most faithfully

Yeah, that's because the more rural areas of our lands are already pretty much post-apoc.

I can't seem to find it, but there's a really good picture of half a broken car strapped to a goat.

I don't have it, but I do have this.

look around you

I would try to be a techno-barbarian

A female Vexillarius? An NCR ranger? What is this?

That is kinda shooped, but yeah, there are places like that.

The worst faction.

Useful?

>m.youtube.com/watch?v=KOmiNoiLThc

Firstly, it depends on how many years after the apocalypse.
You'd probably see lots of outdoors gear, A LOT of surplus, and you'd see normal stuff as well. a winter jacket is a winter jacket, just because it isn't leather and covered in spikes it doesn't mean it won't work in the apocalypse.

50 years after it happens, you'll probably see a mix of homemade clothing and the longest lasting gear, probably milsurp that was stored in warehouses.

100 years and after, you would rarely see clothing from back then. clothing wears out quicker than you think if you're fighting, hunting and do manual work all day.

Probably a lot like Mad Max, just because that's what people have been conditioned to think a post-apocalyptic scenario looks like.

I could see a lot of people turning on the TV to see nuclear war starting and going out to their garage to put together a "wasteland barbarian" outfit.

This for sure

This, actually.

Or go read one of those post-apocalyptic stories by Ray Bradbury like "And The Rock Cried Out".

At the absolute worst, just go explore some of those actually really abandoned cities in India, Soviet Union, China. Or go play Stalker, but imagine all the anomalies, Stalkers, artifacts and military gone.

Syria right now.

Realistically, for normal people I think it would be more like Children of Men than anything. Practical, basic clothing like hoodies, puffer jackets, jeans and trainers.

Might have to watch that film again actually.

Ukrainian rioters

>Yeah, that's because the more rural areas of our lands are already pretty much post-apoc.
Well, post-"communist" countries had a pretty first hand experience of what it is like to live in society that does not seem to function on basic levels, despite often having all the old infrastructure to work.

That said, I really think Japs might be the masters of post-apocalypse. You can make fun of me, but I think Evangelion, Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, Saishou Heiki Kanjo, that "On Your Mark" short video, Ghost in The Shell etc... are MASTERPIECES in post-apocalyptic fiction.

And that is not to mention such BRILLIANT more fantastic stories like Laputa, Nausicaa, Shuna.
I think they have actually nailed it by realizing (much like Bradbury I've praised before) that it's much more meaningful and realistic to focus on things that WON'T change, rather than on things that will change, pay attention to the mundane, and hide the obviousness of the catastrophy.

The movie is a god damn masterpiece and I think it never got quite the appreciation that it deserved.

DON'T read the book though.

why not read the book?

The movie was pretty great, even if bits of the premise are a dumb.

This.

It's... I'm hesitant to say that it's bad, but if you are the kind of person who really enjoyed the movie, you might find it rather insufferable.

Here is how I like to sum it up.
Remember that scene in the movie where Kee (the pregnant girl) is asked who was the father? And how she replied:
"There was none. I'm still a virgin... Nah, I'm just messing with ya! I never even knew the buggers name!"

Well, in the book... she is a virgin.
That should tell you which direction is the book taking. It's a flat out bible alegory.
Not indirect, symbolic broad overtone like the movie. It's just a flat out bible allegory.
As a result, it actually focuses a LOT on problem of sins and vices, dedicating time to how bloated, over-indulgent and selfish the society is. Less refugees, more lavish parties of the degenerate upper classes.
It implies quite heavily that the infertility was a punishment, rather than just an event. It just goes very deep down the Christian rabbit hole.
And I don't even mind Christianity, to me it just felt that they are doing it in a pretty clumsy way too.
To me, it just seemed honestly kinda lazy and cheap.

The premise is actually really good. It is a strange case, because if you read the above text, you'll realize where it comes from, but Cuaron managed to re-shape it into something different, and pretty clever.

Sure, it's a "mythological" logic. But it all leads up to very important, very meaningful statement about value.

Certainly is.

Obligatory

youtu.be/-woNlmVcdjc

I dunno. Personally I think it's pretty refreshing to see their take on the apocalyptic thing because... in a sense, they don't really do the apocalypse, even when they seem to.
(barring exceptions like Fist of the North Star)

"Our" apocalyptic fiction is basically society crumbling and people getting back to their more basic... not necessarily insincts, let's say basic ways of thinking? Less concerned with niceties long gone? See Day of the Triffids, the guy saying "the future is feudalism" - he's not a bad guy, he might even be right in his choices. In general the cozy catastrophe is possible, but not really what happens to humanity as a whole.
Also Mad Max 2 and Thunderdome, if not Interceptor had a deeper impact on the structure of narrative than people realize (Miller cemented the connection with westerns). Barbarism needs a (reluctant) hero to get shit better.

In Japan post-apo is a return to the village and its mentality, but actually people don't "change" that much. No bigotism, generally peaceful people, and -VERY interestingly- tech doesn't really fall out that much: on my two feet only Nausicaa has a real technology downfall and a wasteland proper. Hell, even in Mirai Shounen, the "primitives" are the good guys. In western fiction the bad guys are bad because they are militaristic pieces of shit, not because they're industrialists.
(notice that I don't consider GITS or NGE "post-apo". I'm thinking more on the lines of Shinsekai Yori, where society IS irrecognizable)
I guess it does kinda stem from their historical background: their apocalypse was 72 years ago, and they were BETTER after that. Our is Rome, and... well, shit wasn't that good for some centuries after, Byzantium nonwithstanding.

is it actually guaranteed that she is or does she just say she is (and it's believable to take it on her word)?

>is it actually guaranteed that she is or does she just say she is (and it's believable to take it on her word)?
They don't examine it, but they accept it as truth (though some of them with some doubts). More importantly, the christian message is deeply rooted in other elements of the narrative, especially the focus on the sins and self-indugence, moral decay and the implied "it's all a punishment for how you degenerated". She even gets a bunch of characters that are thinly veiled allegories of the three Wise men and shit. Again, the allegory is just much less thinly veined. She is persued by an evil politician who fears that birth of the child would destablize his political rule and wants it dead and so on.

I don't remember how it ends, though. For some reason I never got to finish to the end.

Though, I'll be completely honest, I've read it some time ago, back when I was much less... open minded to Christianty, and I might have been a little oversensitive to it? And I do remember the writing being good. So maybe it would be best for you to see and maybe find out that I exaggerating. I honestly don't trust my own memories all that much on this.

The clothes people wore at the time of The Collapse, for the most part. Probably an increase in military, emergency response wear and outdoor survival gear, since people will don these during the Collapse for practical reasons.

Scrap down some of the unnecessary elements, use some details for practical-if-unfashionable techniques (a tie being used to cover a hole in the knee of a pair of jeans, sewn in place to keep it from slipping). Fewer and fewer people will have clean clothes, and moreso will people have things with unprofessional fits or otherwise ill-fitting.

Footwear will see the greatest change, unless you're a rural or military type already. People who survive the resurgence of trench foot, lethal infections and the like will see the need to wear water-resistant gear, even if you need to duct tape and patchwork the shit out of them to keep them dry on the inside. Otherwise expect people on safer ground to go closer to barefoot or in sandals, since as long as the ground is dry it's better than a low quality shoe that collects sweat and trace atmospheric moisture on your foot.

Aside from that? Layers. Layers upon layers. Layers of thin cloth to keep cool in heat. Layers of durable cloth to keep warm in the cold. Cloaks made from whatever can keep the water off your back, parkas and long jackets might be more popular. In more "civilized" regions where manufacturing is still possible I would anticipate the revival of the peacoat if only because it's warm and can keep you dry. Wool is gonna be in if you plan on being cold and wet, linen if you're in the hot and dry.

As for architecture and scrapbuilt buildings, expect more The Last of Us than Mad Max.

I think their vision is tied to two major problems. The first one is that they witnessed apocalypse maybe closer than any other modern nation had. Between the two nuclear bombs and the just INSANE damage that the regular bombing has cause (remember, Tokio Air Raid alone killed 100k people during single night, and burned up to 40% surface of Tokio, in a single night. And that was not a single, rare occasion.
So Japanese had witnessed first handedly, what it is to just lose almost everything over the course of few weeks.
It left a scar, and an impression that gets reflected in their fiction. And the weirdest part of the memory was that... it was all just stuff that burned, and that they managed to rebuild it again in just few years, mostly. Because people just pushed on through their ordinary, boring lives and that was what REALLY constituted existence.
Not the houses or momuments.
That is what inspired the Eva post-apocaliptic world, which a story where you won't even notice it's post-apo until like half-way through.

And bigotism, spite, all of that IS acknowledged. They just believe that those will not be the DOMINANT sentiments.

I would like to convince you that Eva sure as fuck is actually very, very apocalyptic. More than it seems. It just likes to not showel the apocaliptic shit down you throat. But if you pay attention to the backgroud, you'll start to realize just how CATASTROPHIC the second impact was.

>Our is Rome, and... well, shit wasn't that good for some centuries after, Byzantium nonwithstanding.
I think our is really more Mad Max, and Doctor Strange Love, The Road, Day After, and of course, Fallout.

I think the vision of Rome is very distant, and very manipulative. That we imagine it by projecting our modern apocalyptic sentiments, but that the reality was very, very different. Much more similar to the Japanese events.
Rome's death was not really terrifying, violent, burnning everything to the ground...

I particularly liked en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_Armageddon

That's because Burgerland looks at post-apoc and sees a contrast - something different from the world of today, both in the negative (everything is shit) and the positive (individuals stuck in dead-end jobs now can prove themselves to have useful talents and traits). Fallout looks back at history, but only enough to further that contrast (bright 50s, dark post-apoc).

European stuff, particularly the Eastern European stuff you mentioned, seems to be tied into the modern world a lot more. STALKER has a setting that is bleak, lonely, and not very fulfilling and dangerous. But it's also surprisingly more tied to history in away America never could - Metro has blatant callbacks to WWII, and STALKER by its setting is tied to the Chernobyl disaster, and the Soviet shadow that hangs over it. Amerifats have never had disasters like that within living memory, at least not on the scale of the devastation of a world war or the irradiation of such a large area.