Today’s content dump is brought to you by bucket brigadier Azi!!
“The best part is it flushes when she gets off. So you cant be like, ‘Well, maybe she’s just sitting.’ God dammit I talked to her and she sat down again. Good luck Ankha.”
Submitted by bucket brigadier Azi! This non-interactable outhouse is located in the settlement of Dayspring. To see inside, our intrepid brigadier had to angle his camera all crazy-like. His report: “Since you asked, there are some shitters in New World. Extremely basic on the inside, I expect improvements before launch.” Inside the outhouse we can see there is a seat. That’s good! But, I consider the amount of care and attention in the design of a game’s shitters to be a reflection of the depth and detail you’ll get from the gaming experience in general, so improvements? I certainly fucking hope so! Can you hear the people cry out, Amazon Game Studios? They are saying, “Make Better Shitters!”
Apparently August 26 is National Toilet Paper Day? And you know how I would like to celebrate this day - by talking about what life would be like without toilet paper. A lot of people on Earth don’t even use toilet paper, opting instead for things like straw, corn cobs, or just their hand, not to mention bidets which are enjoying quite the surge in popularity just lately. But check out this amazing diagram that illustrates how a toilet from ancient Rome might have looked: Instead of toilet paper, ancient people would have used a xylospongium, or tersorium. Essentially a sea sponge tied to a stick, this was was actually shared in public toilets. The tersorium was washed after each use with vinegar and salt water, which allegedly sanitized the object.
I don’t think I’d be down to try that, but what is intriguing about this article from the Manchester Museum is the diagram of the ancient toilet itself. Apparently the back-up of methane gases could cause actual explosions, however, this does seem an interesting concept to build from, for when society crumbles and we are feeling reluctant to start digging 6-foot deep pits for our composting toilets. Maybe I’m just bewitched by the elegance of that toga.
From Melbourne Australia, the Who Gives A Crap company makes toilet paper and facial tissue from 100% recycled materials and/or 100% bamboo. What’s so remarkable about that, I can hear you asking? They also donate 50% of profits to sanitation charity efforts like WASH, SHOFCO, and WaterAid. Earlier this year, Who Gives A Crap donated $4 MILLION to their charity partners. That money goes to build toilets and improve sanitation services for the over TWO BILLION people on the planet without access to a decent shitter. Check out their Talking Crap blog for more information about their charity work.
This toilet paper looks pretty fucking great and I really want to get myself a box of the Play Edition. Themed like a toy box, the paper wrappers are cheerfully designed, and the packaging (which is both sustainably-sourced and recyclable) makes a fun and useful object even after it’s empty.
Everybody poops and as long as you’re buying toilet paper, you may as well help build toilets for your fellow man by investing in a company that’s doing the hard work for us: Honorary Bucket Brigadiers, Who Gives A Crap TP!
Submitted by Bucket Brigadier ThatOneCroatian! While on Safari, this is the first shitter we came across at the train yard, which is still in the informal tutorial section of Half-Life: Alyx. This VR game is incredible even from a spectator’s POV. There’s tons of things to interact with, including glass bottles of beer that you can really shake, watch foam up, and break into a fizzy mess. Our bucket brigadier reports that he could hear the flies buzzing inside this potty. On the ground outside, we see a bucket, which I of course appreciate a great deal.
There’s plenty of guts and slimy things in this game but I was intrigued to learn that a distinct boundary was drawn here, in terms of the icky and nasty. The rat, in the second slide, was lowered into the potty to demonstrate physics. We learned that the reflective surface of the inside of the potty chamber is actually flat and solid, so there’s no water in there.
The long and rambling chain quest, Thicker Than Water, will take you deep into the bowels of the Watoga Underground where you’ll help Beckett work things out with his estranged brother Frankie. This is the men’s and the women’s rooms found in the Underground. Though basic in appearance, they sit like two sphinx guardians, flanking a hallway that leads down, down, down into the discovery of the terrible truth of what happened to Frankie! Did your naive mind think Frankie got hazed into serving The Claw (a shadowy leader of the raiding band the Blood Eagles)? Get ready for your eyes to pop right out of your skull when you learn that Frankie IS The Claw! How did it all go so wrong? Well, I’ll tell you one thing, it has a lot to do with Frankie’s childhood. Yeesh. I mean, Jesus, dude. When I opened the door to Frankie’s “shrine to my toddler years,” which is of course a time of blissful innocence that each of us remember with remarkable clarity, I discreetly snapped a screenshot and then quickly shut that shit back up.
And I gained a lot from this ordeal. Yeah, Beckett and I bonded tons during this very long quest. We laughed, we cringed, we never spoke of it again.
These wooden outhouses are a key component in the Divinity 2: Original Sin quest called Aggressive Takeover. The ghost of the dude who gets murdered in this quest, Liam, tells you outright the name of his killer - It’s some guy named Garvan who is at a tavern in Driftwood. So when you decide, ‘Yeah, it’s my place to deliver the hammer of justice,’ you head to the Driftwood Tavern and somehow convince this man to eat Tainted Meat. When he inevitably gets sick, you slay him out back by the toilets. Really, the meat alone should have killed him, but I don’t make the rules.
Aside from the Tainted Meat, some other things don’t sit quite right about this quest. For instance, Ghost Liam needs “proof” that you killed Garvan. Don’t ghosts normally just know when they’ve been avenged? And I’m not sure how I feel about the toilets being a part of the revenge plot, because who the hell is Liam? I mean, a shitter as a quest object is always awesome, but was Liam some kind of saint? All we really know is he was a tradesperson. And by the way, when you find his dead body, the method by which you commune with his spirit is having an elf in your group eat his leg. That is just so bonkers to me.
