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anonymouspuzzler · 5 months

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Hey Buck can you tell me a joke?

#anonymous puzzler answers #anonymous puzzler art #anonymous puzzler originals #villain coded comic #man who i genuinely don't know if he knows any jokes & definitely doesn't know how to hold casual conversation with strangers

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unpretty · 7 years

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The Boxlunch charity breakdown is the most Batman thing you've ever done on this blog.

it’s just BAFFLING to me how many people are uncritically repeating that this non-union retail establishment owned by a company with known ethics problems (which is itself owned by a private equity firm) is actually good because charity, and therefore it’s mean and bitter to say that their target market is people who would still shop at hot topic if they didn’t want to believe that they are no longer the kinds of people who shop at hot topic

and so many people are just making up numbers that don’t exist, i looked for better numbers but ‘a meal’ was all i found. but you’ve got people saying 10%, a dollar for every ten, ten dollars for every ten (how would that even work??), that they personally give money to local programs for hungry kids (they don’t, they give their money to feeding america and feeding america works with local charities)

meanwhile their total donation will probably amount to $500,000 in one fiscal year, or, to put it another way, the cost of about 20 tumblr ads

i’m not even trying to say they are especially bad or that you shouldn’t shop there (i will probably go back for more blind boxes if i get the chance because I Have A Problem) but dudes need to stop giving them free advertising just because they let you feel like your tardis mug is woke

#original #if they were their own corporate entity #then donating 1% of all revenue with a 2% profit margin would be impressive #but that's still assuming they share an average profit margin with hot topic from four years ago #it's entirely possible that boxlunch has better margins overall #i tried to find more information on mgf sourcing #since sycamore also owns them #and that seems to be how they supply clothes to retail investments #but finding which manufacturers they work with internationally would take Effort #anyway my activity page has been a puzzler #like do people know that No Ethical Consumption doesn't just mean not yelling at ppl for shopping walmart #Anonymous

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kinsie · 5 years

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Overly Belated Game Impressions from PAX Aus 2018

Every year I go to PAX Aus with some close friends to check out the Incredible Future of Games that everyone else already checked out six months ago. This is usually coupled with checking out some wonderfully well-preserved old games and hardware, along with some typically wonderfully weird indie stuff I've never heard about before. Every year, I've written up a little review of things I've played (or watched get played) on an old private forum some friends maintain, but this year, I've figured, fuck it, I might as well post it publicly, right?

Not Indie Games

Super Smash Bros Ultimate sure is a Smash game. That's not a bad thing, but since this was the same demo build from E3 (so before the Castlevania reveals) there wasn't a huge amount of surprises - just a damn good fightfest. Amusingly, the demo booths were split into two groups - For Fun (items on, Switch Pro Controller) and For Glory (items off, the new Gamecube controllers). New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe has a nonsensical name and spawned an even more nonsensical meme. The demo had six levels to play - three from the base game, three from the Luigi expansion - with both the new and old characters to play. It doesn't look like anyone other than Toadette can get the meme crown, meaning players using that character won't have to jostle for powerups in multiplayer. I didn't play Pokemon Let's Go Eevee because the queue was like 90 minutes long, but my friend braved it and gave it a resounding "ehhhh" with a hand gesture resembling a teetering see-saw. Apparently the co-op stuff wasn’t available in the demo, either, which concerned my friend since that was specifically what he was interested in.

V-Rally 4 looks nice aesthetically, but the gameplay seems pretty "eh". The name seems to be about the most interesting part. Dragonball FighterZ for Switch seems like a pretty decent port. I don’t know much about the source material or original game, but it ran fast and I didn't notice any obvious hitching or whatever.

Luigi's Mansion for Nintendo 3DS is... a 3DS port of the Gamecube launch title. It ran at a solid 30fps... a whole lot better than I recall Luigi's Mansion 2/Dark Moon running, but I was also using a vanilla 3DS for that game while the demo units at PAX were New models.

Indie Stuff

The Xbox Adaptive Controller was present as part of a demo setup for a version of One More Line. I wasn't expecting to have to push the Big Novelty Button as hard as I did, I thought it'd be a lighter touch for some reason. Although I know the button kinda isn't the point of the thing...

Supertrucks Offroad is a PC adaption of a mobile take on old top-down racing games. There's promise here, but the current handling and physics leave a lot to be desired. Hopefully it continues to develop and evolve.

Infinity Heroes is a card game with some simplified mechanics and animated versions of all the card graphics. Has potential, but still plenty of rough edges and pre-alpha grit to sand out.

Metal Wolf Chaos XD sure is a port of an Xbox game. It feels pretty well done, all things considered - the framerate is great, the controls are responsive, and the English subtitles are sometimes even connected to what's being said by the characters!

Ghoul Britannia: Land of Hope and Gorey is a point-and-click adventure game that, unexpectedly, uses a Fallout-esque isometric perspective instead of the usual side-on.

Table of Tales is a VR tabletop RPG where you control an entire party of Scoundrels by moving pieces around a constantly-changing board and playing ability cards. Since it was a VR game, there was a long sign-up queue to play, so the developers set up a little booth where Arbitrix, the game's DM (and, incidentally, a mechanical talking bird), would cheerfully explain the game for you. He said my goatee was perfect for a pirate adventure. It was probably intended as a compliment.

Supermarket Shriek is very similar to a game I prototyped years ago, except it's got a Supermarket Sweep theme and shrieking goats. Also, it's actually getting finished and has more than one level, which is another differentiator. Use the shoulder triggers to make the characters inside a shopping trolley scream their lungs out, propelling the trolley and allowing you to steer it through silly retail-themed obstacle courses.

You probably think, based on the squat protagonist and camera angle, that Tunic is a riff on Zelda: A Link to the Past. Surprise! It's actually a riff on Zelda: Ocarina of Time! The combat is very similar, with a dodge/roll button and Z-targeting (although I guess it's more RT-targeting now) that jumps to the next enemy upon beating your current one. I can't say enough nice things about the graphics... One thing that's interesting is that the entire game is in a fictional language. This includes stuff like the pause menu!

Dash Blitz is a pretty amateurish attempt at a Smash-esque platform fighter. The "feel" just isn't there, sadly.

Nom Nom Apocalypse is a top-down dual-stick roguelite about fighting off food monsters. It looks pretty interesting, but sadly I didn’t get to go back and give it a hands-on look.

Henry Mosse and the Wormhole Conspiracy is a good old-fashioned point and click adventure. The graphics are wonderfully drawn in a cartoon style, but they suffer from really puppet-y animation like an old Flash cartoon, and it breaks my heart.

No Moss Studios bought along Beam Team, a couch co-op game about fighting a giant donut that I didn’t get to try, as well as a collection of weird little Patreon-funded oddities like Sprout Up, a simple little mobile game about weaving through vines, and My Magpie, a bird-aiding simulator of sorts.

Little Reaper is a platformer with a fun movement twist in that you can throw your scythe - which travels in an arc like a hammer in Mario - and teleport to where it lands. I'll have to give this a closer look.

Mars Underground is an Earthbound-esque RPG-style adventure game with a Groundhog Day-style conceit of being stuck in a time-loop. I can't really say it struck me, to be honest.

Scout's Honor is a co-op party game where four players team up to set-up a camp-site in a limited amount of time while dealing with hazards and such. It looks kinda cute, reminds me of Overcooked a bit.

Ice Caves of Europa is a rather odd-controlling game where you pilot a hover-drone controlled by an artificial intelligence. This one probably takes a bit more time to wrap your head around than a convention center allows.

Introspect looks really cool - a Shadow of the Colossus-style boss rush with an emphasis on movement tricks and agility. I didn't get to play it while I was there, but the developers were handing out download codes for the show floor build. It seems pretty fun, although it still needs a good deal of polish.

Soundfall is a dual-stick rhythm-shooter where you have to get to the end of a course before the song ends, with rewards for shooting and slashing to the beat ala Crypt of the NecroDancer. One to watch.

Ticket to Earth is a tactical strategy RPG ala Fire Emblem with a tile-matching mechanic that makes how you move to your enemies even more important by limiting your movement and charging your special abilities. The comic artwork is nice, although the talking heads only seem to have one or two facial expressions.

Nova Flow is a first-person speedrunner that reminds me of a blend of Mirror's Edge's DLC maps and that one paint game that got incorporated into Portal 2. One of the demo levels was apparently one of the hardest levels in the game, and the developer was quite impressed at my getting within inches of completing it before the demo timer ran out...

Dawnblade seems to be an attempt at doing the whole Diablo thing on a phone, with the player hacking their way through short, pre-made maps. Visually, it looks like any of a million other games riffing off of Warcraft 3, and it seems to have some weird mobile game trappings like a stamina system to limit the amount of time you can play in a period of time.

Little Bit Lost is a survival game where you've been shrunk down to the point where ants tower over you and are powerful monsters. This one felt real early. It has promise, but needs a lot of polish to truly deliver on it.

Rogue Singularity is a 3D platformer with procgen levels. The feel didn't gel with me, and I can't really say I liked it all that much. It didn't help that the Switch port I played seemed to lack anti-aliasing entirely, giving the entire scene an unpleasant jagged look.

Ashen looks utterly fascinating - an open-world Souls-esque action RPG with Journey-style "passive" co-op where you can occasionally meet other, anonymous players out in the world and either help them or leave them to their fate. It looks really pretty.

Speaking Simulator is a hilarious puzzler where you have to manually operate a human mouth in order to say Entirely Normal Phrases in order to convince people that you are absolutely a human and not a murder robot in disguise.

Untitled Goose Game had a massive queue that I was absolutely not going to fuck with. :(

yeop

#gaming #paxaus2018

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spicynbachili1 · 6 years

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Agony, one of the worst games of the year, gets its Unrated version and a Switch port

Back to hell after five months in limbo

Agony was [checks thesaurus.com for synonyms for “agony”] pure misery, torment, and despondency. I started reviewing it and then just stopped halfway through. I respect my own time too much to continue hating every frustrating second I spend with this game. Although, apparently the entirety of my intro to the pseudo-review was simply “Agony sucks.” I stand by this wholeheartedly.

At least I got this video out of it:

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Today, five months after its hellish release, Agony tries again. Developer Madmind Studio has launched Agony Unrated — a new version of the game that allegedly doesn’t make the compromises the original did. Here’s Madmind’s bullet-point list of changes:

Improved quality of character models and textures

New types of threats – Traps

New types of environmental threats

New types of static opponents

A new, more extensive and useful character development system

Volumetric lighting

Normal Mode and Hard Mode with more opponents and puzzles

Completely new type of environment – the Forest, added to the procedurally generated Agony Mode, which now also includes additional traps and boss fights

8 different endings in the Story Mode

Possibility to follow the story mode as a Sukkub

Sukkub Mode and Agony Mode are unlocked at the first start of the game

Many new, uncensored scenes

Black and red image filter, inspired by the Agony trailers

World map and minimap

The possibility of setting up a fire and killing some opponents as a martyr

Sacrificial altars

New and modified paths for the player

Numerous technical improvements to the basic version of the game and much more

There are a few definite positives here. The maps will certainly help keep Agony from being so disorienting and confusing. The “technical improvements” mean it’s hopefully not such a choppy trainwreck. But Agony is a bad game not for a series of minor but compounding issues, but for flaws that make up its very foundation. This stealth-survival puzzler jumble is poorly designed in almost every aspect. Don’t expect any amount of reworking to definitively save it.

Madmind laid the blame for Agony‘s awful reception at the feet of one trusted team member. Destructoid received an anonymous tip a while back from a Polish reader about Madmind’s public statement to its publisher and investors. The developer says it followed its most experienced designer’s suggestions about gameplay direction, while completely ignoring feedback from testers. That is, supposedly, how Agony ended up so far removed from what crowdfunding backers originally thought it was going to be.

Here are relevant portions of that explanation, run through Google Translate:

Agony in the initial assumptions was to be a small production, scheduled for about 5 hours of gameplay. In order to better match the console player, we extended the story mode from 5 to 10 hours. This resulted in artificial extension of the game, in the form of additional puzzles, difficult tasks and poorly explained gameplay mechanics. An additional factor turned out to be the entrustment of game design, the most experienced person in the Madmind Studio team, and its complete trust — which we regret today.

Madmind Studio, as a small team, had problems with completing such a large game, an appropriate, interesting content that would surprise players at every turn.

Suggesting the opinions of the players about the Kickstarter demo, and comments on the gameplay videos published by us (about 45 minutes of play), we believed that the direction we were heading was right, ignoring the feedback from the test teams, to which we had access through PlayWay SA, which additionally clearly signaled to us that we should make gameplay changes, and think about the release date of the game. However, Madmind Studio decided not to load the release date, believing that the game will be well received by the target group of players. The person responsible for the Agony game design is no longer a member of the Madmind team.

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So, Madmind’s best attempt at course-correcting has released today on Steam. Previous owners are upgraded to Agony Unrated at no charge. The developer has also halved the original price and launched this new version for $15.

The PC version is apparently free of censorship because it’s an entirely different title rather than a straight update. That means it has all the distasteful and objectionable cutscenes that were forced out of Agony. (The exclusion of these scenes wouldn’t make a top ten list of things that Agony fucked up.)

That’s not the case for the console versions. PlayStation and Xbox aren’t going to let that content get patched into Agony. However, Madmind mentions that there’s the longshot possibility that it’ll be able to release a limited edition physical version of Agony Unrated that has an “Adults Only” rating, and it’ll have those cutscenes.

Lastly, in a true twist, Madmind also announces a Switch port for Agony which is scheduled to release before the end of the year. Even with titles like Doom and Wolfenstein II and Binding of Isaac on Switch, it’s tough to not still have a hangover notion from previous generations that Nintendo is the family-friendly platform. If that image hasn’t already been erased, Agony will shatter it. As a bonus, it should be fun to see how the Switch runs Agony — especially considering it was kind of a mess on capable PCs when it first launched.

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from SpicyNBAChili.com http://spicymoviechili.spicynbachili.com/agony-one-of-the-worst-games-of-the-year-gets-its-unrated-version-and-a-switch-port/

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anonymouspuzzler · 1 month

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starting a @heartbreakgulch x @villain-coded-comic thread because there's been uh. a few of these. that i've drawn. thanks again to @strangegutz & company for letting me play with their tuoys

#anonymous puzzler art #heartbreak gulch #strangegutz #villain coded comic #anonymous puzzler originals #tw bare chest #gonna post the other comics one at a time in replies to this so they all stay in one thread. they all Kinda lead off one another. in a way.#sorry for tormenting zeki but also it's so fun it Will happen again

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anonymouspuzzler · 2 months

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Can we see Minnies rat?

The Rat

#anonymous puzzler answers #scurvioli #anonymous puzzler art #villain coded comic #anonymous puzzler originals #cookie the rat we love you forever cookie the rat

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anonymouspuzzler · 8 days

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after weeks of telling myself i would do it finally drew Buck and Davey as this vintage photo of a SanFran queer couple. they deserve the world forever I think

#anonymous puzzler art #villain coded comic #anonymous puzzler originals #i gotta go off with davey's hair more often he's a beautiful beautiful man who deserves it #also to quote an anonymous benefactor 'this might be your best buck rack yet'

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anonymouspuzzler · 10 days

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A Very Special @heartbreakgulch x @villain-coded-comic : Bulkhead & Black-Eyes Origins

(separating this out from my other crossover comics cause I kinda wanna keep adding to it over time i got Ideas please enjoy Part One for now)

#anonymous puzzler art #strangegutz #heartbreak gulch #villain coded comic #anonymous puzzler originals #long post #tw guns #tw blood #buck isn't invulnerable in this universe so his life is even more precarious than normal god help him. and now there's Handsome Man.#also i just noticed one of the panels is fucked up while writing alt text you have to pretend you don't notice ok.

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anonymouspuzzler · 7 months

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younger days...

#anonymous puzzler art #anonymous puzzler originals #villain coded comic #tw smoking #i imagine both of them in their very early 20s in these pics fyi #it's so funny trying to draw buck younger he feels like he should have been an old man from birth

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anonymouspuzzler · 2 months

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you know what? fuck you (heartbreak gulch's my own guys)

(@heartbreakgulch courtesy of the inimitable @strangegutz & collaborators, also miscellaneous Thoughts under the cut bc it's my blog no one can stop me the doors have closed behind you)

HEARTBREAKER BULKHEAD:

Probably does not have superpowers anymore but still came from a family of considerable influence and was under pressure to inherit, pressure which he very much Broke Under.

Turned to a life of crime, definitely got in over his head with it, and essentially got rescued by Eddie, who he is Utterly Obsessed With And Heartsick For.

Has spent literal years as one of Eddie's attack dogs and generally jumping through hoops for him for Whatever Scraps Of Affection He Can Get, though he's still kind of squeamish around Literal Murder and thus tends to be assigned to supply runs and such most of the time.

Amateur mechanic and car enthusiast. Probably did a lot of McGyver-ass fixes around the Gulch-slash-generally assisted Ami til Davey was recruited.

Speaking of, was still the guy who recruited-slash-rescued Davey. They fell for each other hard and are in a committed relationship now, which has helped Buck take a little bit of a healthier step back with whatever the hell he and Eddie have going on (and helped him be a little less jealous and curmudgeonly about the Hot Young Things In Town, ie Zeki and Felix).

Absolutely not prepared to be a guardian to Minnie which has led his and Eddie's whole Relationship to enter a fun new stage of "hey man can I ask you for parenting advice nothing weird"

HEARTBREAKER DYNAMO:

Pretty similar backstory to the Villain-Coded version. Civilian turned criminal, lost his arm when he got in over his head on a job and Buck rescued him.

Has a bunch of different prosthetics he swaps out for different purposes, ie. one for combat, one to use for mechanic work, a kinda general use/everyday one, etc. That said, he goes without a lot to make sure he's prepared for a situation where he doesn't have access/one breaks or fails on a job/etc.

An alarmingly good recruit; I feel like originally Eddie kind of let him stick around as a kind of "gift" to Buck, but now that he's actually got him on jobs he's become a real rising star. Real good in a scrap and is a little more flexible with his moral lines in the sand compared to Buck. Outside of that he works with Ami a lot doing mechanics and repairs - probably interested in learning CompanDroid maintenance/repair but figures it'd be skeevy for him to push that point too much.

He and Eddie have a complicated relationship I think. They'd be kinda suspicious/distrusting of each other but also have a LOT of similarities and work really well together. To say nothing of their respective relationships with Buck.

I don't think he's Trying to Uncle the younger recruits in the Gulch but he definitely Does. He likes White a lot. He and Ami would also definitely get along really well. He is being The Bigger Man and Mature Adult and not giving Felix a wedgie no matter how badly he wants to

HEARTBREAKER(?) MINNIE:

From the same family of prominence as Buck and is currently very much on the run after a failed attempt to kill her own dad.

Extremely a city kid and is Not necessarily adapting well to Middle Of Nowhere Self Sustained Living.

Knew Of Buck but never met him before this so his whole Life and Little Criminal Commune featuring Multiple Guys He's Got SOMETHING Going On With is. it's a lot

Would like to do some crime actually but is A) still a little traumatized and adjusting to the whole Situation and B) 13 Whole Real Human Years Old.

Fascinated by Zeki's whole deal and his work but I think they would absolutely bring out the worst in each other they would fight so much. Autism to autism hostility

Having a very complicated response to White and Ami wherein she thinks they're SO cool but interacting with them at any length would make her realize Things About Herself that she's not consciously ready to confront so just like. Imagine being White and looking over your shoulder and that 13 year old is just Intensely Staring At You Unblinking from around a corner and as soon as she realizes you've seen her she turns around and runs off as fast as she can directly into a wall

Zarita absolutely hitting that Cool Just Slightly Older Kid niche for her.

#anonymous puzzler art #anonymous puzzler originals #villain coded comic #heartbreak gulch #strangegutz #long post #it's fun to put your Guys in a New Situation! love that!!!#fun and interesting to think ok what about you is inherent no matter the setting and what changes when your situation is different #(the funny thing being I don't think a lot would fundamentally have to change about the HBG gang in villain-coded)#(like sure why not we can have compandroids. we can have the criminal haven in the desert. that all makes sense.)

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anonymouspuzzler · 3 months

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good morning! 🌞💕☕

#anonymous puzzler art #anonymous puzzler originals #villain coded comic #tw bare chest #hi i'm trying to learn to draw again i underestimated how easy it would be after so long & so Tired #Expect More Soon Maybe. Possibly #anyway love these nerds.

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anonymouspuzzler · 10 days

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a ton more @heartbreakgulch x @villain-coded-comic stuff because i have uhhh Problems It Appears. thank you @strangegutz for letting me play with your tuoys. and also featuring one zo by @dollie-hearts thank you bon i love zo forever &ever

#anonymous puzzler art #heartbreak gulch #strangegutz #dollie-hearts #villain coded comic #anonymous puzzler originals #long post #tw drugs #tw smoking #tw alcohol #tw bare chest #tw suggestive #tw blood #real fun collection of tags here LMAO #i've got like one more mini comic i could post but i'm on the fence it's like Very Lightly too blue for my usual fare. but i consider it #anyway enjoy these cowboys my brain is normal

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ecoamerica · 25 days

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youtube

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

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anonymouspuzzler · 3 months

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blacked out and finally made my first decent environment design in like. probably literally years. please enjoy Buck and Davey's shitass room

misc design notes slash thoughts if they're of any interest:

All the furniture's a combination of stuff Buck already had when Davey moved in, and stuff Davey brought over from his place when they decided to partner up. All of that in turn is either gotten cheap from thrift shops, rescued from the dump, or for a few of the smaller/nicer items Stolen Outright. As is probably obvious, they also repair and re-repair this stuff as much as possible rather than fuss over replacements.

The vast majority of the cosmetics are Davey's. Buck just kinda combs his hair and hopes for the best.

The rug is crooked because it's been there since before Davey moved in - Buck sleeps on the right side of the bed, so it made sense to have more rug (and more space in the room in general) on that side. Davey didn't care enough to insist on rearranging much when he moved in.

Prior to Buck and Davey taking it over as their hideout, the building used to be an illegal chop shop hidden under a manufacturing plant; their "apartment" is in turn a former break/storage area downstairs from the chop shop. The "bedroom" used to be a storage room, hence the exposed pipes, shitty concrete walls & floor, and marks from where big industrial shelves used to be fastened to the walls.

Because it's an old storage room, it tends to get the worst of extreme temperature changes (hot in the summer, cold in the winter). Also, undecided if they have an actual door or if they've just put a curtain up in the doorway. (Either way, it's also not particularly private or soundproofed - not a huge deal when it was just the two of them, but a bit of an annoyance once Minnie starts living with them.)

The drying rack used to be more out of the way in the living room, but they moved it when Minnie started sleeping there so they wouldn't have to bug as much when they do laundry.

Davey "no no I quit years ago seriously (actually sneaks a smoke or two whenever he gets super stressed)" Lastname definitely has a pack or two of cigarettes hidden in his stuff and thinks he's slick about it. (Buck 100% knows and figures so long as he doesn't smoke in the house and he's mostly trying to quit, it's not worth raising a big fuss about.)

Technically the tools and stuff aren't supposed to be in there, but Buck's always forgetting stuff places when he does repairs or tinkers with shit.

#anonymous puzzler art #anonymous puzzler originals #villain coded comic #long post #tw smoking mention #i would say 'hopefully more rooms soon!!!' but let's be honest we all know it's a coin toss. happy adhd

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anonymouspuzzler · 2 months

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