Tuff Crosswords

We've finally breached the 6.00 average word length mark! And in a big way, with a massive 25x25 asymmetrical themeless. This puzzle was inspired by the work I did on Crosscord's Freehand Grid , which was a massive, completely asymmetrical crossword made without constructing software. While the massive open center of this puzzle started with Crossfire, it was mainly used to create a small central section that I expanded outwards myself. 74-, 90-, 97-, and 99-Across, 32-, 36-, 65-, and 75-Down were all added manually, and half of those weren't even in my wordlist. 

You can probably see that I've been tweaking the 132-word Sunday themeless grid to get lower and lower word counts. This one's got 124, and is probably harder than the other ones, but it's still shaped like the cool S. It's still got an average word length of under 6, but now it's JUST under: 5.98. Also please ignore the cheater squares in the top-right and bottom-left corners; they're load-bearing. Next time I do a Sunday themeless, I'm probably going to try the same grid but without those, and honestly I'm a bit scared.

 Just in time for a month before Valentine's day! 

The second entry in Tuff Crosswords' Themed Vowelless series. And it is a series now, because there's two of them. This one is inspired by a Joe Krozel puzzle from 2008. Fair warning: I think this one is *very hard* due to its vowelless nature and the restriction on the entries formed by its gimmick. While it's technically possible to go in blind, I'd recommend using the spoiler under the grid, as it'll really help if you get stuck. But for now all I'll say is: the two seven-letter entries in the center are the same forward and backward for a reason. This grid is identical when it's rotated 180 degrees. This means every letter has a copy in the opposite position of the grid. If the first across entry of the grid was STH GRN (Seth Green) the last across entry would be NRGHTS (unrighteous) and so on and so forth. So if you can't figure out a letter, check in the opposite position.

Another 21x21 themeless! This one has 128 words compared to 132 in the last one, so that word count is coming down. I built this one from the middle out, finding a set of words between 41-Across and 79-Across that I liked and then filling in the gaps until the grid was split into a top half and a bottom half. This one ended up with quite a lot of Spanish in it, with some vocab and phrases but also place names. Enjoy!

 Inspired by that one Venn diagram.

This one was a fun experience. It's probably four years old and I only remembered vague parts of it when I opened it last night. At this point I have no idea how I made this. There are eight regular theme entries, set up in four pairs which have to be in a specific order relative to each other. There's a fifteen letter revealer that crosses two of those theme entries. There are three bonus revealers (which are three letters) All told, there are 79 squares with part of a theme entry in them. There are a lot of clue "pairs" (71- and 49-Across; 37- and 53-Across; 1-Across and 2-Down; 68-Across and 46-Down) All of this, and the only sacrifice I had to make was expanding the grid to 15x16. I considered ways to update the grid but I honestly struggled with getting three pairs and an alternative 10 letter revealer. So I don't know how me four years ago managed it. Nothing short of a miracle. SPOILERS! Here are some of the entries that didn't make it but were stil...

A themed vowelless crossword! I've had some ideas for consonant-based themes floating around, but regular crosswords didn't seem like the appropriate medium for them, so I'm making them vowelless. I think it strengthens the effect, and it's way easier to fill. Vowelless crosswords are like crosswords on easy mode from a constructing viewpoint - you cant get a ton of fun fill in there, and the grid is extremely flexible. While I'm sure they're out there, I haven't seen any fully-themed vowelless crosswords before, so hopefully this is a fun experience for you as well. Some notes on the puzzle itself: AEIOU are removed from each answer - I've made sure that 'Y' isn't in any of the full words. There's a couple of abbreviations in there, but they act enough like regular words that I'm just giving their length - no periods, etc. So be careful around any short-length words.

Today's puzzle isn't ~quite~ a crossword, but it still involves words crossing, or rather weaving. Fun fact about these puzzles - there are multiple arrangements which all work - see some of the alternate versions of the example. Here's a PDF  for the puzzle And the Solution

 Every circle in this puzzle contains a two-letter atomic symbol for a unique element.

Every down answer in this crossword is a theme entry. But wait, there's more! This crossword has a couple of BONUS themers There are two Across entries in this puzzle which conform to the theme. Can you find them?

Hope you enjoy! Here are some of the entries which unfortunately didn't make it in but which are still fun.  PHYTOPLANKTON - PLANT STRONGER - SONG (Kelly Clarkson my Beloved) BUDWEISER - BEER

A twist on a fairly common formula. Now each theme category has TWO words hidden inside it which belong to that category. Except for the last one - that has three (hence the different shading colors). Now, it's my judgment that all of the categories are reasonable entries - however if that is not your take, I do apologize, and I offer the fact that MUSICIANS has MCA and SIA (and NAS backwards) hidden in it as a consolation, as I could not fit that in the puzzle. Click to see the PDF  

This puzzle serves two goals. First, to make the fake crossword from the Community crossword credits scene a reality; second, six actual entries already implements, to cram as many Community references into the puzzle as possible.