GUEST PUZZLE BY QUIARA VASQUEZ: HALLOWEEN THEMELESS

 [ACROSS LITE | PDF]

 

Solving Music: Oingo Boingo - No One Lives Forever

Quiara's Notes:

It was fun pitching a crossword towards what I presume is more of a zennial audience (e.g., the 62-Across clue). I miss getting sloshed on October 31st. :v

It's been a while! Today's puzzle is by Quiara Vasquez of "making a 90s Will Shortz emote for the crossword Discord" fame; it's a really solid Halloween themeless with some really wonderful clues. Editing this puzzle was particularly enjoyable; Quiara's constructing voice is very unique and fun, and I hope to see a lot more from her soon.

I've been losing constructing steam a bit lately, but I am still working on stuff. I actually have two finished puzzles that are ready to be posted here to the blog and another couple that are close to being done, it just takes a good amount of mental energy to get these blog posts set up (getting the download links for the .puz and PDFs is a bit of a lengthy process) and I haven't been feeling that energy lately. But rest assured I will, in fact, be popping off in November. I'll have another puzzle up later this week (and it's themed!), so look forward to that.

By the way, I've had a couple of sudoku puzzles solved on Cracking the Cryptic recently! Here are the videos of the solves:

I was thinking of putting those sudoku puzzles here as a blog post at some point, so that may be coming soon; if you want to solve them now, CTC has solving links in the descriptions of the YouTube videos.

SOLUTION:

Join the crossword Discord Server, where we talk about puzzle solving and construction!

GUEST PUZZLE BY WILL EISENBERG: I NEED A HERO

[ACROSS LITE | PDF]

Solving Music: Childish Gambino - Feels Like Summer

It's a guest puzzle today! Will reached out to me about a guest spot here, and I was more than happy to oblige. This one has a really nice theme with some quality fill and cluing, Will has very much embraced both the vibe of the blog and his own constructing voice. This was very fun to edit, and I look forward to the opportunity to do so again. (You can go follow Will on Twitter here.)

Will has asked me to use this space to promote the donation page for Unicorn Riot, an independent group of artists and journalists focusing on decentralized reporting. It's not an organization I'm familiar with, but I'm more than happy to share that donation link. Navigating the media space has been really rough the past couple of weeks, and one of the most important things you can do is keep yourself informed through a wide range of outlets and continually change your opinion based on what you learn.

I've been very hesitant to promote different groups/funds/etc. because I'm not competent enough to say I'm vigilant about checking which organizations are worth promoting and which are less than ideal or flat-out hurt the BLM movement. I've also been exploring my ideals about the most effective ways to create change and push the BLM cause forward. The risk of promoting to an audience a resource I'll realize a week later I shouldn't have is ever-present, and honestly scares me more than it should.

That said, I've seen the link to this Carrd site shared around by people all over lately; it's regularly updated and has links to tons of resources, including donation links to groups in all areas of the BLM fight. Among the resources is, for those who can't comfortably donate, a link to this YouTube playlist of videos whose monetization proceeds will go toward BLM-aligned organizations. I've taken the route of leaving the video open in a muted Chrome tab so the site doesn't devalue the pageview. (I've read that the process might be hindered by viewing these vids in a playlist, so check for the best way to use this resource. And don't take my word for anything. Check if these organizations meet your standards, and act accordingly.)

This is probably as much as I'll say about the current movement in any social space (continued sharing of links aside). The paragraphs above are absolutely necessary in this cycle where an audience is an extremely valuable tool to have, but I'd like this blog to primarily be a place where everyone who needs it can take a mental break and solve some puzzles. So enjoy the break.

Thanks again to Will for reaching out and providing a guest puzzle. Happy solving!

SOLUTION:

Join the crossword Discord Server, where we talk about puzzle solving and construction!