Solution: Close Words

There are 11 small pictures, and 11 words/phrases at the bottom, suggesting that they can be assigned to each other by some way.

The puzzles strongly hints that it is themed around words that are closed or related to each other, which would suggest the idea of finding synonyms. While that is indeed part of the puzzle, that's only one half of it.

The idea of "words that are close to each other" can be interpreted in a different way --- namely, words that are one letter off each other.

For each of the 11 given words/phrases at the bottom, there is a synonym or a word for it that is one letter away from another word that is being clued by one of the pictures. Taking the differing letters from the images' words spells out the answer.

Bottom clue	Synonym	One-letter off image	Letter
Stop	HALT	HAL[F] a star	F
Compress	CRUSH	CR[A]SH Bandicoot	A
Empty	BLANK	BLA[C]K square	C
Lightning	BOLT	B[E]LT	E
Bangs	FRINGE	FRI[D]GE	D
144	GROSS (word meaning a dozen of dozen, or dozen squared)	Lip G[L]OSS	L
Lip Balm	CHAPSTICK	CH[O]PSTICK	O
Conceal	HIDE	BeeHI[V]E	V
Amylum	STARCH	S[E]ARCH (the magnifying glasses one)	E
Shovel	SPADE	A SPA[R]E Bowling frame	R
Make	CREATE	CREA[S]E	S

The answer is FACED LOVERS

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Author's Note

Despite being placed in the second slot, this puzzle actually came quite a bit later in the creation of this hunt. And it is around this point that I've realised that this hunt so far has been dominated by word-based puzzles. This was an attempt to make an easier puzzle using some of the most common puzzle principles, which unfortunately was yet more word-based stuff, i.e. synonyms and letter changes. This should hopefully offsets some of the more involved word puzzles that would come later (e.g. Encryptic).