It took me a minute to figure out what I wanted to celebrate, because 2025 gave us a lot of good ones. This time I've picked a selection that straddles the gap between the shitters that I've hunted myself, and those submitted by the Bucket Brigade.

In Third Place, the Urgently-Required Shitter from the Hogwarts Legacy Room of Requirement. It's so unnecessary, which is why I love this one. My favorite thing about shitter hunting is the unexpected ones, like this overgrown, stoic cryptid, looking like the Pale Man from Pan's Labyrinth. It's like the Daedric Prince of Flushing. It's beautiful that there was a shitter in this place. The condensation drip from that tank has got to be devastating.

Second Place goes to these stunning Aristocratic Medieval Vampire shitters from Resident Evil: Village. This was submitted by bucket brigadier ILikeSocks! It is one of the best I have ever seen and these receive historical cosplay recognition in several categories, including Craftsmanship (artisan enamel bowls in mahogany wood reflecting peerless attention to detail), Performance (the gender inclusivity of this shitter is unmatched thus far in the industry), and Spirit (adding richness to the player experience by simply existing within this scene). Resident Evil continues to pioneer excellence in shitter representation. Let's keep upholding the standard throughout 2026. Just maybe we'll some other games rise to this heretofore unattained echelon.

And finally, our First Place Blue Bowl of 2025 is the Untold Shitter, from Stories Untold! Which is indeed very told. This winner was submitted by bucket brigadier Rockin' T! We get told all about it in a very clear narrative that is discovered while playing the game within the game. This shitter is highly unique, in fact, I don't know if there's another shitter like this on the planet. While playing a text-based RPG on a virtual PC within the game itself, the player discovers a shitter. And it is within your imagination alone that you must witness this shitter. This means we all encounter this experience differently, it is colored with our own individually-unique lived histories and it is only within ourselves that we can know the truth of this shitter. The features of this shitter are only implied. No one can tell you what this shitter looks like. You tell yourself. This has become my aphorism for this next calendar year.

Here's to another absolute banger of a year at Gaming Thrones. We eagerly look forward to what 2026 can bring ... in the way of shitters, because that's really all we have to look forward to. So buckle up. No shitters so far have seatbelts, but you know what, baby, never say never. Bucket Brigadier of the Year is on its way, I promise, but I've been fucking busy and I know you understand and I thank you so very much for that. Please look forward to it!

Right about now, we're all thinking the same thing. And it looks like this shitter, located in a ruined building near the Old North Church in North Boston, is as well. But what if we all took a moment to think not about what if, but rather, what is?

What is the thing that you're choosing to occupy your time with today? What is right in front of you? What is within your control? In spite of the centuries of progress, war never changes. Some things, we just have to give up on. Maybe we end up building a better world, where those things are left behind and forgotten. What is what you do have the power to change? For me, it's writing a little about the magic of video game bathrooms, and I'm so glad you're here with me.

I'm not trying to uggo-shame. But the Athena Tower is supposed to be a high-class place where everybody wants to live, and we've got brass trimmings. It's cheap, though shiny! Which is often the only selling point the average consumer needs.

The mirror is not usable, though it is chic, which will usually pass the 5-second Zillow visual test. Why the long shower hose? I feel like that's kind of an accessibility hazard. The tiles look to be acrylic. The wall panels seem laminate, and the walls themselves look like they're from maybe an airplane? To be clear, this is not the fault of the shitter, it's absolutely the landlord's fault (always is). Let's get the rent to reflect the reality here.

The worst part of all this is the toilet paper. Just put it on the thing, dude. If this is you, and you just plonk the tp on the spindle like a fucking entitled slob, then maybe you should take a moment and just think about yourself and your values.

The shitter itself is gorg, nothing wrong with it of course. It fits the space, and honestly, I think any of us would be delighted to make use of it. Just be careful you don't crack your head on that lighted iron ring on your way back up from the "use of it" position.

Think about a time when… you really experienced a piece of music. Maybe you were smoking a fat doobie in the screened-in porch of an abandoned cabin in the middle of nowhere. Maybe you were having a difficult time, contemplating joining the Brotherhood of Steel, just to be finally free from that cult where everyone seems to be related. Maybe you were experiencing transcendent joy or peace, after a no-scope headshot on a Legendary Super Mutant Butcher.

Now YOU can share that feeling with the world by making a tax-free donation to public broadcasting! WRVR needs over $700 caps per day to operate the radio station. So run screaming across this tar field and try not to twist your ankle when you entrust that tin of Nuka-Cola caps right through the window here at the WRVR station, and we'll use it to make sure the best of broadcasting gets to every living room and rest room in the in the Wasteland.

Have you ever rolled up on a scene where someone was clearly in desperate need of first aid, because they just got hard refreshed into the cement floor by some nameless, ornery thugs? And you decided, "I don't have time for this today," and kind of skedaddled tf out of there, left that shit unresolved, figuring somebody else could get their hands dirty cleaning up whatever happened there?

Well, you're NOT alone! In fact, everybody was on that ride, doing nothing right along with you, at the Red Mile, a bar/restaurant in the Porrima system, where you can watch people race through a Takeshi's Castle-type "formidable challenge" while wagering coin against their very lives. This is the shitter in that place, and as you can see, somebody was here and not doing so great, and nobody helped them or even cleaned up after. I thought there was going to be something I could at least learn about this evidential kerfuffle, or a quest associated with, maybe about a missing person, but no. There was nothing to learn. Not a single person noticed or cared what may, or may not, have happened to this individual, whoever they were, because why should anyone put their time and energy into a situation where they weren't going to get anything out of it? Man, what's funny is, if there's one thing that interstellar radiation CAN'T change, it's human nature.

Here's a weird chair at Poseidon Energy, where a gang of raiders are stinkin' up the joint. It seems this raider boss was simply in love with Glory, the free synth babe with rocker hair, and wished for her to be his queen.

So this place is just called "Compound", and it's in a fucking culvert within some part of the municipal water system. The people from Covenant hate synths so much they built a little jail in here and they use it to weed out the synths from the LTN. If you're so confident in your robot-hating credo that you based an entire town around, why are you hiding in the culvert. Anyway this is the wilson they left out for the synth. The "Compound W", if you will. Along with that is a full-on mongrel leg, which is just so appetizing, it's difficult to believe it remained untouched. Is this here as a test? I wonder if synths mime the act of squatting over the bucket.

The city of Paradis is nothing like what its name implies. It's like Lord of the Flies up in this bitch. The minute Claviger Eamond bit the big one, the city swarmed to loot his mansion. Here's his chamber pot, they left that behind. Even though it's a really one! These commoners wouldn't know quality if it smacked them on the ass.

Snaps. I think I once crossed paths with her

The story of Vault 75 is fucked up, as you might have surmised by the word "Vault" in its name. Short story: This is in the basement of a middle school, and the people that were once in this vault were part of some genetic harvesting program. Now it's a squat spot for Gunners. This first shitter belongs to the Gunner Commander. It's suuuuper nice, lots of original flooring, a curtain on the shower (which is very princely of this small-time gang capo), and a fucking newspaper towel, which baffles me every time I see it. You know this bitch isn't reading.

Second picture is, I guess, the softer side of raiders. They just all miss the puppy. You know, the one they all knew at some point in their lives? and they gather here to talk about it. Meanwhile, they also put chain collars on adult dogs and train them to attack normal people, so I don't know how effective this group DBT actually is.

Monsignor Plaza is a galleria of a sort out in Cambridge. It has a lot of shops, and the interior looks insane, like it was trying to be an al fresco market square, indoors. Don't get me wrong, it's a good time. I definitely bought J Crew here once. But, if you tried to buy J Crew here in 2287, you'd be shit outta luck and not only because the J Crew branch at Monsignor Plaza closed over 260 years prior.

You would find this shitter, though that looks like a transplant, does it not? It doesn't look like where a shitter was originally intended to go and appears to have been placed here by "occupants", lord only knows who as I'm sure Monsignor Plaza of 2287 changes gang ownership regularly. It's certainly being used by the current occupants, likely not being cleaned by them.

As impressed as I am by the filthy privacy barrier, can you imagine the conversation that went on while they were arranging this space? "Yeah stack these torture cages along this wall, definitely wanna feed the dog right fucking there, and when I'm at this armor workbench, I want to be within plain viewing distance of the crapper." Whatever. For all I know this place had way more interior partitions once upon a time, and these geniuses tore them all down to roll blunts with the drywall paper.

This seaside retreat, where the Nakano family lives, is right at the very edge of the Commonwealth. Since making a name for yourself as a Diamond City gumshoe, you've left yourself open to the punishment of requests from all kinds of people, including the Nakanos, who have misplaced their child and expect you to find her. Their adult child, who is perfectly capable of making her own choices and going wherever she pleases. Even if those choices and places entail rerolling her identity as a synth, which is a fad that is sort of like 'going emo', but for 2287 CE.

I did decide to go find out where Kasumi went and how she was doing, but I did it for the thrill of adventure, and not to manually correct Kasumi's fate. She has every right to pursue whatever life she wants, even if that pursuit is stupid and sucks ass.

Just so you know, she's not a synth (if you don't believe me, just save your game, blast her between the eyes, and search her corpse for a synth component), although Kasumi herself is hardly shocked at all when you don't even have to tell her twice. She's kind of relieved, because the synth town of Acadia is hard-core lame, and she's a little bitter about having come all the way out here for a place with no running water and no shitters. Which are both pretty important for humans!

Anyway this is the pretty powder room she left behind to hang out with DiMA, the 6-ft tall, fragile, leathery, synth cult leader freak who looks like Jean-Luc Picard with a bunch of Edison bulbs sprouting out of his skull. It doesn't take a ton of convincing to get Kasumi to return to this cheerful coastal haven, where the comfort of this shitter awaits. But not before Kasumi offers, out of nowhere, to personally destroy DiMA's reputation and burn Acadia to the ground.