Ooookay guys. Roll a D20 for me.

The Droughts, Pandora shitters!

When bucket brigadier Solo Espresso told me he was playing Borderlands 3, the first question I asked was, of course, ‘Does it have shitters.’ This was his response. His commentary on these outhouses:

“It’s a place outside the starting zone. After the intro stuff, you get this. Kind of a mini-junkyard, but it isn’t. Second picture is same place as previous one, just a second one.

That silver beam of light looking like excalibur in the toilet is an ammo clip. The surrounding scrapheap makes for quite the dismal dump, but my say something nice is the colorful bunting is cheerful at best. Better than nothing, but still, it would bum me out to have to use this.

I guess to sidestep the inevitable inquiry of who maintains these shitters, the designers popped what looks like a vacuum cleaner onto the side of them so you get the impression they are some kind of automated composting toilet. That effort is admirable, but I still have questions. As far as I can tell, there’s no lore in the game that states what happens to the compost after it is processed. Does it just go into the ground? In what way does this impact the land? Is there a monster somewhere deep beneath the planet’s crust who is angered by the intrusion of the compost? I get the feeling the designers don’t want you to think too much about it. It’s just a crapper, so move on, gamer. Well, I think about these things!

It’s time for the 2019 Blue Bowl Awards!

Each year, the illustrious committee of experts at Gaming Thones, consisting of myself, likes to give a nod where it’s due to the best of the bowls. There were a lot of great potentials this year, but the clear winner for 2019 is the train depot shitter from Metro: Exodus. I’ll tell you what makes this shitter so outstanding:

1. It’s dreadful. Look at this fucking thing. Metro: Exodus is in the horror genre, and this shitter itself is a nightmare. There is no seat. It’s a metal basin that was probably originally intended for a urinal, with a concrete surround. It’s almost completely exposed to the elements, including radioactive snow that is currently falling right onto it.

2. It’s not clear where the thing drains to. Does it just empty out directly underneath the basin? Why would anyone use this? And clearly people do. Because there are several books and someone even left the lights on, implying they plan to return.

3. Metro: Exodus shows us the current demand for shitters is relevant. The game came out this year, and the presence of shitters of this design quality indicates not only that video game shitters are no passing trend, but that in time they may only improve.

Our second place winner is this prison shitter from Dishonored 2. As you know, I love me a good prison shitter. The tiny bucket in the corner is, for me, a joy to behold. That bucket says, “I know this is the last place on Earth you ever want to end up, and it’s probably the last place you’ll ever be. But I want you to know, I’m here for you.” When the going gets rough, a prison shitter is the one friend who will stay by your side, also because you aren’t allowed any contact with the outside world. You better appreciate a prison shitter. A terrific note on which we finish off 2019 - In gratitude, we thank our shitters, which provide comfort in even these terrible places.

The 2019 Bucket Brigadier of the Year is…

Congratulations to Khazya, the Gaming Thrones bucket brigadier of the year! What did he do to deserve this? Khazya contributed a lot of content to us this year by pairing up with me and streaming his playthrough of Dishonored 2. Together, we documented undiscovered shitters, shared laughs at the expense of the steampunk aristocracy, and swapped ideas for future projects. Thank you for giving so much of your time that you can never get back to Gaming Thrones this year. I can’t wait to do even more of this with the bucket brigade next year.

In honor of our brigadier, a donation of $10 USD has been sent to The World Toilet Organization.

2019 has been a year of learning and growing. I discovered something new about myself in 2019. It turns out that one of my favorite things is to peek into random Twitch streams, and find surprising places where shitters hide, in games I never played. So hopefully in the coming new year, there’ll be more surprises like that!

The Baron’s golden shitter!

In the futuretimes of post-war, dystopian Russia, the Caspian Sea is no longer an enormous lake shaped like an upside-down baby. Instead, it’s a dried up desert region full of loot and booty that the local pirate goons scramble to claim. This alarmingly low-iq pirate community is led by The Baron: A bald, toothpick-chewing dirtbag who just wants to be Immortan Joe so badly. The Baron invites you up to his crow’s nest to toast whisky at gunpoint, and celebrate your newfound, compulsory alliance. But since I’m never agreeing to that, it all goes to shit and a shootout begins. I survived, and during the cutscene, I caught a brief glimpse of this incredible artifact. Yes, once again it’s an elevated cistern shitter! Gleaming like an idol of Ba’al, comfortably perched among richly patterned carpets and rugs. I think that’s also a gold-plated basin or something against the wall, but let’s be really real and just admit it’s spraypaint. Look at the tacky gold rams’ skulls. The Baron’s exquisite taste in only the finest bathroom fixtures trumps everything I thought I knew about home design.

Handmade Metro: Exodus themed brass 12.7mm bullet lighter.

Yamantau Bunker shitter!

This solitary toilet can be found cowering from abuse and disrepair at the vast bunker at Mt. Yamantau. The rollover image shows the exquisite detail afforded by the miracle of nightvision goggles! This is the only shitter on the level that I had access to, but I have to believe there are others in the unexplored areas. In addition to the grunts, this bunker was supposed to boast heads of state and the finest military minds, and I can’t believe they’d all be shitting together in harmony.

The Yamantau Cannibal Troupe are truly evil creatures. It’s terrible what they did to this room. That urinal doubles as a deadly weapon. If the cave troll from Moria came after you, you could actually use this urinal to defend yourself against it. I’d really love to know why I keep having to ask ‘where is the sink’, and I would vastly prefer if the alternative was our customary standard of sanitation. I cannot stress this enough: The bathroom is the staging ground for a multi-step process, and one of those steps is washing your god damn hands when you’re through!

At this point, I have to pause, because question marks have started percolating around my ears. In Metro: Exodus, the elevated cistern flushable toilet boasts significant popularity all across Russia, and it shows up in a lot of my screenshots. The design dates back to the era of Queen Elizabeth I (c. 1592). It’s certainly a conversation piece, and though some (who?) might deem it elegant, the presence of this ancient machine here at the Yamantau Bunker poses several issues. First, the issue of materials efficiency. If this thing breaks, where’s anyone going to find the obsolete valves and gaskets it needs? And actually maybe that’s why it looks this way, because there is actually no way to fix it. Second, there was extensive bombing in this region in the decades prior to our groups arrival (in fact, we passed a city-sized crater right before the main entrance came into view). The heaving of the ground, along with tremors, would have caused this tank to topple and smash, so it’s just not practical. Perhaps the entire machine was salvaged and installed by a scouting team after the bombing ceased, but I find that to be the most unlikely possibility of all. They would have had to find this object somewhere in Russia, but it probably wouldn’t have even been in a museum because by the time most households in the region had indoor plumbing the design had changed. These anachronisms have me wondering if Artyom snorted a little too much of that blue-green mold, and now he’s got a case of the Fantasies.

Twin Chefs shitter!

Submitted by Bucket Brigadier Gunmetal! This is from the game Little Nightmares, in which the protagonist (a wee child) experiences the thrill of being a prisoner of the mind and running from their nightmares. Thank you for your sacrifice, Gunmetal. Though the graphics for Little Nightmares are genuinely innovative and quite beautifully drawn, I could never play this. Describing the scene for us, a dining hall on a cruise ship called The Moor, Gunmetal says the following:

“In this level there are these two creepy ugly chef guys that you keep having to hide and run from, my only guess is that they shit in tandem with each other.”

During my independent research, I observed the following: One, during some parts of the game, the chefs are attached to each other in much the same way as this toilet, and it’s very interesting that the game reserves for them a custom shitter. Commendable accomodations for the differently-abled.

Second, the level starts with the following description: “The Twin Chefs sense something that makes their skin itch. A dirty, unwelcome presence. Vermin will not be tolerated in the kitchen.” Of course, they’re referring to the player. Oh really? Do you see the state of this bathroom, wherein both chefs have left toilet paper rolls on the floor next to the crappers. The filthy assholes. Calling me a vermin? That really gets me fucking steamed. They also leave soap suds pooling on the floor around the overloaded washing unit, which will almost certainly cause a slip-and-fall accident, but maybe they figure they’ll get their hands clean in the dishwater because this bathroom doesn’t even have a sink! And no one is bussing the tables that continually pile higher and higher with dishes. The mood of gluttony is reminiscent of the transformation scene at the beginning of Spirited Away, and though I don’t believe that movie features even one solitary shitter, I can probably guarantee you the restrooms at Yubaba’s Bathhouse are in a higher eschelon of cleanliness than what we see here. Let me just change that health inspection grade of C to an F because this place is a fucking tip.

Hansa Train Depot shitter!

While still in the beginning of the game, at some point Anna (the protagonist’s wife) gets kidnapped by a group called Hansa. I kinda fought back, and maybe might have been shot and left for dead in a culvert. But, I found a medkit on a corpse, dusted it off, patched meself up good as new, and broke in to where Hansa was keeping Anna - A train depot, with tons of armed guards. God damn it, Anna, I loves ya, but you’re really a lot of work.

Upon rescuing Anna, a stealth mission begins, and you can’t even save during it, so it’s a great challenge. I found this shitter near the beginning of the level, so it’s almost like they give you the reward before you do the mission. This is a Минстрой-approved sanitation device, with a proper seat. It doesn’t even look cobbled together. This is some pre-war shit! Even if it doesn’t have a door, it is still somewhat sheltered from the elements due to the surrounding crates and concrete slabs. The candle and reading materials give it a reminiscent wink of comfort. I’m sure that book is left open because it’s impossible to fumble with the pages in subzero temperatures.

This shitter is a contender for the esteemed Blue Bowl of 2019.

Fanatics Church shitters!

Metro: Exodus is a post-apocalyptic, open-world stealth FPS, with shitters. For me, that is the golden ratio. It is like receiving a card in the mail full of hundreds. Set in Russia, this game was released in the early part of 2019, but I’m just getting around to it now, and boy howdy, this game is a goldmine of shitters.

Here are two shitters you find when you visit the Church of the Fanatics. It’s right as you first enter the Volga territory. Led by Father Silantius, the congregation first welcomes you by clanging a bell, waving enthusiastically, and cheering at you. “Come on in my brother, and receive our blessings!” So you know right away things are about to get freaky. Say what you will about homicidal psychotics, but these folks are OK in my book because look at these shitters. I’m the non-lethal type anyway when it comes to these games, so it worked out.

First time you find a shitter at the Fanatics church, it’s in the belfry. This one belongs to Katya and her daughter, civilians who warn you about the Fanatics hostile intentions. A simple bucket, tucked into an alcove, with a curtain for privacy. прекрасный!

The second shitter is downstairs in the main area of the church. It’s a proper bench-style, with a little candle, some books, and a sink outside for washing up after. In terms of post-apocalyptic sanitation, this is true luxury. I would say this is the высший shitter, and the amentities here are almost enough to make you wanna join the Fanatics! I chose non-lethal takedown of everyone present, but I’m thinking of coming back some day and settling down here. This is a four-bedroom, two-bath lakefront property with no mortgage, filled to the gills with glass jars of weird preserved carrots and stuff. дом, милый дом наконец!