About the Puzzles

Welcome to Dissonant Grids. 

This is not like other puzzle blogs. If you’re looking for fun puzzles, for fresh puzzles, for solving qua solving, you’re in the wrong place. But I do hope you’ll stay around. 

In May of 2024, listening to Christopher Rouse's distressingly gorgeous flute concerto, an idea struck me. Like many constructors, I believe crossword puzzles to be a form of art. Yet over the century of its existence, crosswords have largely been burdened by the idea of being fun. And, listen, fun is important and good and reasonable! But I wondered if there was a possible new variety of puzzles, like dissonant music, like violent or upsetting art, that are unpleasant, but cathartic. Or emotional. Or somehow worth solving, despite not having fun as their primary goal. 

This blog is a journey for me and how I think/feel about crosswords. Being one of the younger people in the crossword scene has made me feel the need to find a niche, and this is me exploring that. But also, more importantly, this blog is a place where I'm going to share puzzles that make me feel things. Hopefully, if I've done anything right, they'll make you feel something too. More likely, they won't, but hey, this is worth a shot, right? The puzzles themselves will not all fit a mold: I'm going to try weird, different things, and experiment. 

I'm going to try to publish a puzzle on the 13th of every month (oooh spoooooky), but I might stray from that as, y'know, life occurs! I'm not expecting these to be widely solved, so the fact that you're even bothering to read this means the world to me. If you solve even one of my weird creations, this will all have been worth it. 

A word on content warnings

While these puzzles are not made to be happy or fun, I do recognize the importance of trigger warnings for potentially upsetting material. On the Content Warnings page, you'll find specific warnings for each puzzle (but be warned - they may be a bit spoiler-y!).

If you're looking for puzzles that are actually.... um.... fun, I make those too! Or check out one of the many other amazing puzzle blogs out there.

Thanks for popping by! 💕

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