themeless no. 32 (feat. erik agard)

welcome to the redesigned crosstina! i forgot i changed the header a few weeks ago and jumpscared myself. i still have a hard time believing that this thing has been going (at varying speeds) since late 2021. what a time to be alive!

to paraphrase a haus of decline comic, it's a treat to make something and pour your excitement and joy and love and all that important stuff into it, in hopes that whoever then experiences the thing gets a share of that. to make those things with friends is even more special, so it's a real thrill to have erik here again! it's been a while since our last blog collab, but erik is in high demand and i have been very busy eating stale swedish fish and trying every limited edition coke flavor. you understand, surely.

a note from erik: 

what an honor, joy, and privilege to be able to bring you another Crosstina Collab! hope you enjoy it and your day! 

and that's all we wrote! besides the puzzle. good luck, have fun, wear your sunscreen, and be kind.

[ FULLSCREEN | JPZ | PDF ] [ puzzles for palestine | these puzzles fund abortion ]

themeless no. 31

i made this puzzle as a joke, and then i got sick. i'm posting it now because i've been cluing it between 14-hour long "naps" and literal fever dreams and i think it's funny. you aren't obligated to tell me you like it, but *cough cough* it would make me feel better. there is no poster for it because i didn't feel like it :) changed my mind :) 

please check out these puzzles fund abortion 4, if you haven't yet. here is a list of ways you can support palestinians in gaza.

OH by the way did you know that manatees CHIRP? you're welcome!!!

[ FULL SCREEN | PDF | .JPZ ]

themeless no. 30

themeless no. 29

video of me writing clues for this puzzle

it's always great to be back here. it's not like i ever really leave, but it's kind of an 'absence makes the heart grow fonder' deal. the time i spend not constructing for the blog is spent longing for the creature comforts of home; i'm never happier than when i'm posting puzzles here. i hope that comes across, in some way. maybe it will be conveyed with the new CONFETTI POP feature of the nexus solver, under the jump!! i started half-jokingly asking alex for this feature a while back, and as an all-around good person who has long-suffered my insufferability, he actually took on the challenge to delightful result (if i say so myself). i think it's joyful. (p.s.— there is also a surprise for people who solve in amuselabs! volume ON)

if you're looking for some crosstina-in-business-casual-clothing, i have six (6) eight (8) puzzles running between late october and mid-december that i'd love for you to check out. i am very fond of all of them, especially an upcoming usat collab with amie walker. please enjoy!

i can't promise i will get another puzzle out here before the end of the month, so i do want to wish my beloved blog an early 2nd birthday! i started crosstina on 10/31/21 and...quickly realized this was something i really, really enjoyed. my first byline was a lil avc x on 3/28/2022, my print debut (usa today) was ~5 weeks later, and...the rest is history! as you can imagine, it's been a wild ride. there is no possible way i could have predicted any of this, and it makes it incredibly hard to guess where i'll be at this point NEXT year. however i really, truly, madly, deeply want to thank every single person who has ever solved, left a comment, sent a dm, etc. it has all meant so much and sharing this with you is the deepest well of happiness in my little life. 

[ nexus solver below the jump | amuselabs (fullscreen/mobile) | .pdf | .jpz ]

something has happened!

 

themeless no. 28 (feat. brooke husic)

*extremely airhorn sound effect moment* IT'S AN A. LADEE x CROSSTINA COLLAB! 

if i may get sentimental for a moment, having a puzzle with brooke on the blog is quite the occasion. when i had the opportunity to join the lil avc x roster last year, it felt completely out of left field and i had to pinch myself because i felt so lucky to get to learn from her. brooke was the first editor i ever worked with, and that first puzzle was challenging! i was as excited as i was clueless. from there, though, i like to think it has been onwards and upwards. fast forward ~18 months, and her guidance and friendship have been invaluable; her talent, humor, and patience with me are legendary, and i am never not trying to sponge up some of her wisdom. she has been a shoulder to cry on and, on more than one occasion, has helped intervene to stop me from throwing my computer in the trash and walking off into the sunset. brooke is so generous with her time, knowledge, and skills and we're all so much better off for it. this is not our first collab—if you count another one that is out in the world today, it's actually our third—but it feels very special to have someone who has always been so supportive of me finally appear on the blog (my baby, the thing of which i am most proud, my favorite thing to do). 

a note from brooke:

these barbies made today's new yorker! yee-haw!

and that's all we wrote (besides a few puzzles)! we hope you love this, because we're so fond of it and so excited to have both of these out in the universe today. xoxo 🧡💛

[FULLSCREEN | JPZ | PDF ]

themeless no. 27

 

i've spent the past ~3 weeks convinced i had completely forgotten how to make a puzzle and was truly descending into complete madness.

then at midnight on wednesday, i had a eureka moment. curse, broken. crops, flourishing. snakes, no longer manifesting in my home. this puzzle is hopefully breezy enough that it does not require any intimate knowledge of the bear, but....go watch the bear. that said, no one test solved this because i've gone rogue.

also, i have the universal on saturday. it has approx. 1600 characters in it. this one has...more than that. 

click here to see what this grid was supposed to look like before amuselabs told me it couldn't connect to a server and i lost all my progress

[FULLSCREEN | PDF | PUZ]