something has happened!

 

"themeless" no. 25

 

as someone who has never made a themed puzzle in my life, it gives me no joy to announce that this is maybe not a themeless puzzle. i'd call it a 'choose your own adventure' but, well... i chose for you! i tried to make this one pretty easy breezy because...y'know what? let me stop while i'm ahead. this puzzle was both encouraged and tested by alex, so please direct all your complaints to crossword butler. without further ado...

(ED. NOTE / SPOILER: gur nygreangr gvgyr sbe guvf chmmyr vf "bbcf, nyy qbjaf!")

[FULLSCREEN | JPZ | PDF]

one-in-a-minion: a crosstina, kate, & meatdaddy joint

 

step 1: go wish meatdaddy happy birthday

step 2: come back and solve this puzzle

we hope you hate it :) 

(feel free to avert your eyes)

some early reviews: "never seen a puzzle with a final boss before" - will eisenberg

[FULLSCREEN]

puzzle no. 12: throw some d's (feat. erik agard)

i'm so excited to finally post this—it's been burning a hole in my pocket all week! he needs no introduction otherwise, but this is erik's debut on the blog! (a feather in his cap, i'm sure). it's hard to explain how this came to be, but it started with me listening to THROW SOME D'S by rich boy (2007 BET  award nominee for ringtone of the year), and ended in...a crossword. erik is, among many things, extremely funny and wrote some all-timer clues for this puzzle. we toiled and troubled (neither are true: making this was a blast) over it for a few weekends, and i hope you love the end result.  

in erik's words: solving crosstina puzzles has made me fall in love with crosswords all over again, and i had so much fun getting to collaborate on this one. hope you enjoy! 

shit tight, no slack, just bought a cadillac...

fullscreen | pdf | .puz 

no. 6: what's new with you?

 

no funny movie poster today— this girl's got a theme!

i hand-scraped the 2021 tweets from @nyt_first_said, an account/bot that keeps tabs on when the nyt publishes a word for the first time, and scattered some of my favorites in this very puzzle. i would have liked to use some more of them as the other fill, but couldn't swing it. which is fine, because i still have words like GOOFAZOID, BASTARDESS, and MOMCORE to trot out at a later date. (look at this cool visualization of the process behind the twitter feed!)

i hadn't planned to put out another puzzle before the end of the year, but this feels like a good note to go out on: an unintended year in review. i did not see 'crossword constructing' being a thing i picked up this Q4, but here we are. i'm very grateful for all the new people who've graciously welcomed me into their orbit, and look forward to a 2022 where crossfire stops giving me bullshit fill like AMOEBOCYTE. cut it out!

thanks to rose for testing this one out for me!

[DIRECT] [.PUZ] [.PDF]