puzzle 92: "cutting corners (freestyle 96)"

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you may notice that two corners are cut off from the rest of the puzzle. the short explanation is that that's just what happened after putting in the two seeds and then building around them in the middle. you may also notice that the fill in those two isolated corners is, perhaps, a bit below my usual standards. and you would be absolutely correct, but at the same time there's a mini-theme there. (it's not the first time i've used isolated parts of the puzzle for mini-themes.) could i have done better? probably, but i really wanted to get the first two down answers in there. i wholeheartedly support anybody's attempts to improve it; best revision wins...something. idk. haven't thought that far ahead yet. open to (reasonable) suggestions on that front as well.

all that aside, i'm reasonably pleased with how the main part of the puzzle turned out. i especially like the top stack of tens, though the bottom stack is no slouch either.

finally: does it count as a gratuitous car seat headrest reference if it's a seed entry? key word here being gratuitous; if so, i guess i'm resetting that sign.

puzzle 91: "animal house"

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much like the puzzle from two weeks ago, this one was inspired by current(ish) netflix media and memes and things and what have you. and, for some reason, i felt the need to intersect everything. when will i ever learn that that makes things way harder than they need to be? (don't answer that: we all know that i'll never stop doing that.)

puzzle 90: "twist and shout"

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more of a freestyle than a themed puzzle today, though i continue to be a sucker for intersecting entries, as the three main ones in this one do.

in other crossword news: erik agard just dropped an amazing freestyle the other day; definitely solve it asap. and: queer qrosswords 2 is happening! more details (and contact info) at the link, but suffice it to say that i'm very excited for this, and have no doubt that the puzzles will be just as fun and inventive as they were last year.

and, finally: the first spyscape puzzle has just come out. it's by david steinberg and edited by yours truly. puzzles will be weekly, which means there will be plenty of opportunities for constructors to be published. if you're interested in contributing, or just want to offer feedback and comments, email me at this link.

puzzle 89: "olin college"

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last puzzle of the year here, and i'm looking forward to what 2019 will bring. for sure, lots of puzzles, both here and elsewhere. fingers crossed that there will be a variety, both in terms of outlets and types of puzzles. speaking of which: last week's touchword was well received, and there will be more of those in the future. and: if you missed it, i had a guest freestyle puzzle with the american values club crossword. definitely proud to have a puzzle there, especially since they do such great work w/r/t many issues in the crossworld, and i'm hoping to have more there.

puzzle 88: "touchword 1"

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variety puzzle! it's a touchword, which is a format i learned about from joon pahk's outside the box puzzles. instead of having words cross at the same letter, in a touchword, every letter is vertically adjacent to the same letter in at least one direction. the top row is considered adjacent to the bottom row, so the entire puzzle forms a nice cylinder.

bit oversized here, and probably on the harder side, but i think there's a lot of interesting answers in here. many thanks to paolo pasco for testing this and convincing me to flag multiword answers and ease up on some of the clues, especially around proper clues and tricky crosses touches.

in any case: this is the first variety puzzle i've had here on this blog, but i'd definitely like to have more in the future, and would love any feedback on what you liked or didn't like.

puzzle 87: "we three songs (freestyle 83)"

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this is the quasi-themed holiday freestyle promised last week; you can probably guess what the theme is from the title alone. was really just going to have a freestyle with three grid-spanning entries, but unfortunately, i miscounted, and it turns out they weren't all the same length. fortunately, they intersected very nicely. made it a bit harder on myself by trying to get giant corners, which is never easy with two answers already in place in each corner, but somehow it came out pretty alright.

as always, hope you enjoy; mini from yesterday if you missed it, and variety puzzle coming tomorrow!

puzzle 86: "stocking stuffer"

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this is not one of the two promised puzzles from the last post, but a little something extra i came up with yesterday; people who know the history of crosswords and important dates and such might notice some things about this puzzle.

anyway: more goodies and presents to come this weekend, and next week as well!