Swiping Really Fun Formats: Wishful Thinking Log
Inspired by Veep's Solving Really Hard Puzzles, I've recently started logging my solves on multipuzzle extravaganzas. Now that the answers for zebraboy3 's outstanding Labor Day set Wishful Thinking are online, here's my log.
(9:00:50 AM): It's up!
(9:02:33 AM): Floating Island... oh, damn, not having a color printer may hurt here.
(9:03:35 AM): Bahahaha @ Cyclopes!
(9:08:58 AM): Okay, just about done printing.
(9:13:38 AM): Okay, Amjad and As'ad, since you were so resistant to printing, you're going first.
(9:14:17 AM): First names should be easy to get. We'll see if that gives a natural way to pair up clue halves.
(9:14:45 AM): Oho! BO and LUKE!
(9:17:41 AM): Possibly all pairs of male relatives? I see Dukes, Gershwins, maybe Disneys...
(9:18:05 AM): BEN and JERRY in there, too, though.
(9:21:48 AM): Achillea millefolium ought to be a Googleable in as to what's going on with the clues...
(9:22:34 AM): BROKEN (Y)ARROW?
(9:22:58 AM): Oh! (L)OUT OF AFRICA...
(9:24:39 AM): (Y)EAST OF EDEN...
(9:26:22 AM): Ah, not Ben & Jerry, BEN & CASEY (Affleck), for CITY (A)LIGHTS.
(9:30:04 AM): Guessing it's alphabetical by last name, and read down the extras?
(9:32:42 AM): Huh. Why had I not heard of the non-Harvey Weinstein?
(9:37:35 AM): Oh, JACOB Marley! Was wondering what I was going to do with two Bobs.
(9:39:24 AM): FROM RUSSIA WITH (C)LOVE. Was wondering if I was going to blank on all of the rest of these...
(9:41:49 AM): Was "Deal of the Century" a thing? Sounds vaguely familiar...
(9:42:08 AM): Yep.
(9:46:47 AM): Hm. Tappet or Magliozzi?
(9:52:20 AM): Hm. All the puns so far are adding a letter to the beginning of either the first or last word. That might play into the splitting nature of the puzzle somehow?
(9:53:15 AM): (A)SCENT OF A WOMAN. That one took way too long to get.
(9:59:43 AM): Heh, (M)ICE STATION ZEBRA. To be expected. :-)
(10:12:38 AM): AMAZINGLY... (Possibly. Don't know the names to go with Jake or Theodore.)
(10:18:31 AM): AMAZINGLY COMRADELY?
(10:18:37 AM): It's not accepted, though.
(10:19:00 AM): Ah! Separately they are.
(10:19:49 AM): Moving on to... Serendib? Sure, why not.
(10:22:38 AM): That zigzag with the 2s is going to be a key; it's got to lie in a certain position along region lines.
(10:23:30 AM): Actually, I'll come back to this one. Probably best to cut it out and play with it.
(10:23:52 AM): Burial Vault.
(10:24:26 AM): A lot of these, but not all, refer to specific voyages of Sinbad. Probably not an ordering mech, but good to be aware of?
(10:25:16 AM): Grey Poupon is one answer...
(10:26:11 AM): Hides UP, and there's lanDOWNers...
(10:27:05 AM): Found a place for lanDOWNers, fitting DOWN in one cell where the next way to go is down...
(10:29:26 AM): Maybe not just UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT? SunfLOWER seed, Grey PoUPON...
(10:35:29 AM): Not all the directions take you forward on the path; some pass through walls. Take the indicated letters, maybe?
(10:46:50 AM): D?S??TE?EOE?V??
(10:51:25 AM): No, that O is wrong. UNORTHODOXLY, not UNORTHODOX, to leave room for AWESTRUCK.
(10:52:46 AM): D?S??TE?ECE?VAL
(10:57:52 AM): Had to resort to Wikipedia's list of Latin phrases for IN EXTREMIS...
(10:58:49 AM): Okay, ends in RECEIVAL...
(11:01:17 AM): DISPUTE fails, but DESPITE dings!
(11:01:27 AM): What's this damn column...
(11:04:04 AM): PILASTER? Huh. Okay.
(11:05:09 AM): So twelve puzzles, two answers apiece is twenty-four...
(11:05:22 AM): So eight answers per wish? Maybe?
(11:05:41 AM): Time to stare at Magians.
(11:06:20 AM): Oh! We Didn't Start the Fire!
(11:06:38 AM): This. Is. Wonderful.
(11:06:44 AM): So what goes in the blanks?
(11:08:13 AM): The rhymes for these people, maybe? BRITISH BEATLEMANIA fits...
(11:09:51 AM): Okay, probably not going to be able to do this from memory. Finding lyrics...
(11:14:07 AM): Some rows are going to have to hold two answers.
(11:20:22 AM): HECATOMB and AMPHITHEATER?
(11:24:58 AM): *fills in the rest of the grid for fun, then goes to check*
(11:26:21 AM): Oh hey. There is an Introduction. I should maybe read that, huh?
(11:27:25 AM): Okay, so not necessarily 8/8/8.
(11:29:14 AM): Oh! And a different prize system. Looks like I'm competing against Spelvin and Striker after all.
(11:30:26 AM): Cyclopes. I see the enumeration for O Brother, Where Art Thou?, with a | for the O.
(11:32:05 AM): Oh, that's just a 1.
(11:32:34 AM): Thought at first they'd all have an O, but not all have a 1. O Brother does have a one-eyed character, though...
(11:40:07 AM): Not getting anywhere. Switching.
(11:41:00 AM): Tailor's Home?
(11:43:43 AM): No idea what to do.
(11:43:59 AM): Floating Island?
(11:44:08 AM): *brings up the PDF for the colors*
(11:46:34 AM): Okay, "pattern" in the flavortext is interesting. Cryptogram patterns, maybe?
(11:46:43 AM): Let's see what islands I can ID.
(11:47:57 AM): HONSHU...
(11:48:21 AM): CUBA...
(11:49:15 AM): OAHU...
(11:50:18 AM): NANTUCKET... which has the same pattern as EYESTALKS...
(11:50:58 AM): Ah, I see how this works.
(11:51:32 AM): Black ones I write under the colored circles, and I decode them with the appropriate island's crypto key.
(11:55:33 AM): GREENLAND / PASSENGER...
(12:12:40 PM): ??C?A ?T?D ?R??N?
(12:15:11 PM): U?C?A ?T?D ?R??NS
(12:15:14 PM): UNCHARTED?
(12:17:00 PM): TinEye-ing the lower left guy...
(12:18:33 PM): Oh! It's Billy Crystal as Fernando. Right.
(12:19:20 PM): Now TinEye-ing the lower right guy...
(12:23:40 PM): Er. Results are all in Arabic.
(12:23:46 PM): Probably should have expected that.
(12:28:55 PM): Seeing if TinEye works on islands.
(12:30:41 PM): No, not really.
(12:43:27 PM): Whoo, pattern-matching for Fernando gave me Dominica, which also gives me... Scarborough, it looks like it's called?
(12:43:54 PM): Oh! No, that's the island of Tobago.
(12:46:31 PM): And that's just a generic SHEIKH, looks like.
(12:46:38 PM): So UNCHARTED ?RO?NS.
(12:50:30 PM): Guessed DROWNS. I am going to get this last damned island if it kills me.
(12:54:59 PM): Hispaniola!
(12:57:27 PM): And downspouts. *finally puts this one down*
(12:57:52 PM): There's symbols on the doorframes above the chambers... Is that for meta or metameta purposes?
(12:58:37 PM): Old Man of the Sea is next.
(1:00:26 PM): 18 items on the to-do list, counting the parenthetical, and two sets of 18 clues.
(1:08:24 PM): Things on the left, I think, are made up of a tool for a task, stuffed with an answer from the right, plus another letter. R(ADIOS)(C)OPE...
(1:10:40 PM): SP(ACES)(U)IT...
(1:12:56 PM): CO(UNTER)(T)OP...
(1:13:02 PM): Yeah, this is the right way to go.
(1:32:31 PM): ???E?C?A?S?U??T?ON
(1:36:35 PM): Not quite enough to get it yet.
(1:36:57 PM): FLUORESCENT LIGHT is way too long to work, isn't it?
(1:37:57 PM): ??WE?C?A?S?U??T?ON
(1:47:33 PM): LOWER-CLASS?
(1:47:51 PM): Yes!
(1:48:01 PM): A lot of possibilities for the rest, though.
(1:53:31 PM): ?U?CT?ON
(1:53:43 PM): Pretty sure it's either JUNCTION or FUNCTION. FUNCTION is more thematic...
(1:53:57 PM): Ding!
(1:54:07 PM): I'll come back to this later. Very nice one!
(1:54:55 PM): Rows Garden / Snakes thing?
(2:18:42 PM): There is an Internet Movie Firearm Database. That is terrifying.
(3:22:58 PM): Done! CUPIDITY and BOOTSTRAPS.
(3:24:47 PM): Three Ladies next.
(3:46:31 PM): Okay, got a message about paying attention to food and drink, and several answers are foods and drinks...
(3:49:31 PM): ...and there's a possible hint to a Bacon cipher.
(3:49:49 PM): First ?'d column has exactly five letters from foods or drinks...
(3:50:43 PM): Haha, BIG ACROSTIC FAIL
(3:51:16 PM): HEY now... every single letter of BLOODY MARY falls in a ?'d column.
(3:54:08 PM): And with GREEN TEA and ABSINTHE letters circled too, I'm starting to see a grid pattern...
(3:58:36 PM): Bacon cipher with As for drinks and Bs for foods gives CAROUSED / AIRS. Brilliant!
(4:02:36 PM): Tent cryptic next.
(4:06:07 PM): 11A is a beautiful &lit.
(4:18:29 PM): And 31A is nice too.
(4:20:46 PM): And after Googling up the two I hadn't heard of (LORICA and REBATO), I'm ready to do the chess thing.
(5:56:09 PM): One word is GREENHORN...
(5:59:50 PM): A GNOMEN FOR THE VICTOR AT THE BUSTLE OF ZAMA? I think?
(6:00:27 PM): No, BATTLE OF ZAMA.
(6:01:07 PM): (And AGNOMEN.)
(6:01:22 PM): AFRICANUS?
(6:01:44 PM): Oh thank God I'm done with this one.
(6:02:42 PM): Winged Men now.
(6:20:03 PM): TAKE FLIGHT AND ASPIRER.
(6:20:44 PM): That was well done and easy. Break now for a snack and drink.
(6:21:48 PM): Back. Going to stare at the meta(s) a bit.
(6:23:15 PM): Ooh, DROWNS = SWORD (a blade) + N.
(6:24:04 PM): And RAPIER + S = ASPIRER!
(6:27:22 PM): CLAYMORE + D = COMRADELY...
(6:28:20 PM): Possibly SAI + R = AIRS?
(6:30:22 PM): CLEAVER + I = RECEIVAL
(6:32:00 PM): SCROLL SAW + E = LOWER-CLASS! Nice.
(6:37:43 PM): I don't see an ordering mech yet... but maybe one of the other two sets uses the Sinbad voyages as its mech? Let me check to see if the intro rules that out...
(6:39:17 PM): "That is not relevant here." I'll take that as a no for now.
(6:39:41 PM): The Blade chamber has nine spaces...
(6:40:14 PM): Ice has eight, Fire has seven. That's twenty-four in all; guessing those are the group sizes?
(6:42:21 PM): Moving to Cyclopes.
(6:49:10 PM): Found Bridget Jones's Diary. Was there a one-eyed character in that?
(6:51:14 PM): Not that I can tell. There was an artist on the soundtrack who wears an eyepatch, though?
(6:52:21 PM): Found MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO...
(6:56:14 PM): THRONE OF BLOOD?
(6:57:08 PM): Oh, are these all remakes of classic stories?
(6:57:15 PM): Odyssey, Macbeth...
(6:58:58 PM): Ahh, that's 10, not IO THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU.
(7:01:23 PM): Bridget Jones doesn't appear at first glance to be a remake.
(7:04:57 PM): I see FOIL + O = FOLIO...
(7:12:37 PM): AND TRY FOLIO? What?
(7:14:37 PM): Oh! Remake titles can go in too, to spell ALTERNATIVE. That must've taken some doing...
(7:15:33 PM): Going to try IRON SIDES for the Blades chamber...
(7:16:42 PM): Yay! Wonder if there was an ordering mech to it?
(7:16:48 PM): *jots down the symbols*
(7:20:00 PM): Okay, I should be able to get these last two metas, shouldn't I?
(7:21:22 PM): Ohh, ordering mech was length.
(7:21:41 PM): A two-letter blade that anagrams with I?
(7:21:59 PM): Er... IXA?
(7:25:43 PM): AMPHIT(HEAT)ER, TAKE F(LIGHT), UN(CHAR)TED?
(7:26:32 PM): No, it needs at least one from AFRICANUS or GREENHORN.
(7:27:48 PM): There's two puzzles left, both of which must supply a missing Blade and one other answer apiece.
(7:28:24 PM): I half-want to have a set that starts A-H...
(7:32:28 PM): I have a B, a C, a D, an F, a G, and an H, along with four As and another C.
(7:37:16 PM): Okay, okay, I'll get the scissors and do the sudoku.
(7:54:42 PM): Finally done cutting. Let's see what I can do...
(8:12:08 PM): Ugh. Getting nowhere. Back to the funny hunchback...
(8:13:21 PM): Too many places I could go with this flavortext...
(8:22:07 PM): I want this to be a jigsaw word search, but of what? Comedians that died early?
(8:25:38 PM): Or Boggle-y find-the-comedian with some letters wrong? I can get WANDA SYKES to work...
(8:26:34 PM): And there's GILDA RADNER...
(8:27:01 PM): DANA CARVEY... this is working.
(8:27:11 PM): There's always one wrong and one left over, I think?
(8:31:01 PM): Lily Tomlin's is ambiguous...
(8:43:13 PM): Ah, finally, here we go: They pair up and swap two letters. Dana Carvey and Lily Tomlin...
(8:44:55 PM): Kimmel and Sykes...
(8:55:33 PM): Oh, duh, they're in alphabetical order.
(8:57:18 PM): There's still always one left over, and I think it stays in the same position between pairs...
(9:02:17 PM): ...And it's a different position for each pair. THE SOLUTION BAS??IT...
(9:03:56 PM): BASMATI... Checking non-spare pairs now...
(9:06:22 PM): They're not all in different positions. But they're associated with the spares, which are. Checking that...
(9:17:24 PM): All comics ID'd now. Where's the other word?
(9:25:21 PM): Eh, it's a blade anyway. Back to staring at the metas?
(9:37:32 PM): TAKE FLIGHT has a scrambled FLAKE in it...
(9:37:54 PM): But I don't see any scrambled FROST, RIME, SNOW...
(9:39:57 PM): Oh hey, maybe I was on the right track with CHAR etc. back there, but with synonym of other senses of FIRE, too...
(9:40:12 PM): (BOOT)STRAPS, AFRI(CAN)US...
(9:41:44 PM): Too unconstrained.
(9:42:35 PM): But maybe it's a reverse of the 1952 meta? UN(CHAR)TED becomes UN(I)TED?
(9:51:34 PM): They're all in different spots in their answers! BOOT, AROUSE, CHAR, ZING, CAN, LIGHT, HEATER, I think.
(9:53:16 PM): And the rest are an A-H minus the E.
(9:57:09 PM): A DELUGE!
(9:57:58 PM): Woohoo! Okay, more symbols to copy down.
(10:06:51 PM): So if I can get Ice with one missing, so much the better. (Though I won't count out an all-answers metameta like last time...)
(10:12:14 PM): Just Googling the lot turns up wordlists, as I pretty much expected.
(10:12:32 PM): Some odd, forced-looking endings. BASMATI, HECATOMB...
(10:13:00 PM): Anagrams have been done. Hidden words have been done. What hasn't been done?
(10:19:56 PM): What's icy? Cubes. Er. Things at zero degrees.
(10:20:08 PM): Diamonds.
(10:20:26 PM): Though that was done in TOMOTS.
(10:22:47 PM): To ice someone is to kill them... *notices the skeleton in the art*
(10:23:12 PM): Though that's not really connection enough to ice; that connects to blades too.
(10:27:06 PM): RADIO TNT? Heh, no.
(10:27:15 PM): Reading down columns has been done too.
(10:29:15 PM): There's no one letter they all have in common. BASMATI and GREENHORN see to that.
(10:30:18 PM): Oh! BASMATI = R + ICE!
(10:31:29 PM): AVAR + ICE, SACRIF + ICE...
(10:31:48 PM): NOV + ICE...
(10:32:08 PM): CHO + ICE...
(10:33:22 PM): CRAMPONS.
(10:37:12 PM): Okay, symbols almost completely copied over. Demon battle coming up...
(10:41:37 PM): Printed. Yep, it's an all-answers metameta. Let's see how far I can get.
(11:09:07 PM): Wow, this is a lot harder than it looks. Breaking for a bit.
(11:19:54 PM): Eyes... not so much with the focusing. Breaking for a LARGER bit.
And that's where I stopped logging. I went to sleep a while later, and with fresh eyes the next day I managed to get the metameta; having recorded the answer FUNCTION instead of FUNCTIONS hurt me for a long while. In between the time when I submitted the answer and the time I heard back, I found the other answer for Tailor and semi-miraculously backsolved the answer RECONSTRUCT from knowing that it had to have the pattern R????S????T or T????S????R and be an S transaddition of a blade. EXPENSE was a slightly easier backsolve. A few days later I did finally forward-solve Serendib with a nudge from canadianpuzzler , though I did it through trial-and-error rather than the deterministic solution that existed.
(9:00:50 AM): It's up!
(9:02:33 AM): Floating Island... oh, damn, not having a color printer may hurt here.
(9:03:35 AM): Bahahaha @ Cyclopes!
(9:08:58 AM): Okay, just about done printing.
(9:13:38 AM): Okay, Amjad and As'ad, since you were so resistant to printing, you're going first.
(9:14:17 AM): First names should be easy to get. We'll see if that gives a natural way to pair up clue halves.
(9:14:45 AM): Oho! BO and LUKE!
(9:17:41 AM): Possibly all pairs of male relatives? I see Dukes, Gershwins, maybe Disneys...
(9:18:05 AM): BEN and JERRY in there, too, though.
(9:21:48 AM): Achillea millefolium ought to be a Googleable in as to what's going on with the clues...
(9:22:34 AM): BROKEN (Y)ARROW?
(9:22:58 AM): Oh! (L)OUT OF AFRICA...
(9:24:39 AM): (Y)EAST OF EDEN...
(9:26:22 AM): Ah, not Ben & Jerry, BEN & CASEY (Affleck), for CITY (A)LIGHTS.
(9:30:04 AM): Guessing it's alphabetical by last name, and read down the extras?
(9:32:42 AM): Huh. Why had I not heard of the non-Harvey Weinstein?
(9:37:35 AM): Oh, JACOB Marley! Was wondering what I was going to do with two Bobs.
(9:39:24 AM): FROM RUSSIA WITH (C)LOVE. Was wondering if I was going to blank on all of the rest of these...
(9:41:49 AM): Was "Deal of the Century" a thing? Sounds vaguely familiar...
(9:42:08 AM): Yep.
(9:46:47 AM): Hm. Tappet or Magliozzi?
(9:52:20 AM): Hm. All the puns so far are adding a letter to the beginning of either the first or last word. That might play into the splitting nature of the puzzle somehow?
(9:53:15 AM): (A)SCENT OF A WOMAN. That one took way too long to get.
(9:59:43 AM): Heh, (M)ICE STATION ZEBRA. To be expected. :-)
(10:12:38 AM): AMAZINGLY... (Possibly. Don't know the names to go with Jake or Theodore.)
(10:18:31 AM): AMAZINGLY COMRADELY?
(10:18:37 AM): It's not accepted, though.
(10:19:00 AM): Ah! Separately they are.
(10:19:49 AM): Moving on to... Serendib? Sure, why not.
(10:22:38 AM): That zigzag with the 2s is going to be a key; it's got to lie in a certain position along region lines.
(10:23:30 AM): Actually, I'll come back to this one. Probably best to cut it out and play with it.
(10:23:52 AM): Burial Vault.
(10:24:26 AM): A lot of these, but not all, refer to specific voyages of Sinbad. Probably not an ordering mech, but good to be aware of?
(10:25:16 AM): Grey Poupon is one answer...
(10:26:11 AM): Hides UP, and there's lanDOWNers...
(10:27:05 AM): Found a place for lanDOWNers, fitting DOWN in one cell where the next way to go is down...
(10:29:26 AM): Maybe not just UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT? SunfLOWER seed, Grey PoUPON...
(10:35:29 AM): Not all the directions take you forward on the path; some pass through walls. Take the indicated letters, maybe?
(10:46:50 AM): D?S??TE?EOE?V??
(10:51:25 AM): No, that O is wrong. UNORTHODOXLY, not UNORTHODOX, to leave room for AWESTRUCK.
(10:52:46 AM): D?S??TE?ECE?VAL
(10:57:52 AM): Had to resort to Wikipedia's list of Latin phrases for IN EXTREMIS...
(10:58:49 AM): Okay, ends in RECEIVAL...
(11:01:17 AM): DISPUTE fails, but DESPITE dings!
(11:01:27 AM): What's this damn column...
(11:04:04 AM): PILASTER? Huh. Okay.
(11:05:09 AM): So twelve puzzles, two answers apiece is twenty-four...
(11:05:22 AM): So eight answers per wish? Maybe?
(11:05:41 AM): Time to stare at Magians.
(11:06:20 AM): Oh! We Didn't Start the Fire!
(11:06:38 AM): This. Is. Wonderful.
(11:06:44 AM): So what goes in the blanks?
(11:08:13 AM): The rhymes for these people, maybe? BRITISH BEATLEMANIA fits...
(11:09:51 AM): Okay, probably not going to be able to do this from memory. Finding lyrics...
(11:14:07 AM): Some rows are going to have to hold two answers.
(11:20:22 AM): HECATOMB and AMPHITHEATER?
(11:24:58 AM): *fills in the rest of the grid for fun, then goes to check*
(11:26:21 AM): Oh hey. There is an Introduction. I should maybe read that, huh?
(11:27:25 AM): Okay, so not necessarily 8/8/8.
(11:29:14 AM): Oh! And a different prize system. Looks like I'm competing against Spelvin and Striker after all.
(11:30:26 AM): Cyclopes. I see the enumeration for O Brother, Where Art Thou?, with a | for the O.
(11:32:05 AM): Oh, that's just a 1.
(11:32:34 AM): Thought at first they'd all have an O, but not all have a 1. O Brother does have a one-eyed character, though...
(11:40:07 AM): Not getting anywhere. Switching.
(11:41:00 AM): Tailor's Home?
(11:43:43 AM): No idea what to do.
(11:43:59 AM): Floating Island?
(11:44:08 AM): *brings up the PDF for the colors*
(11:46:34 AM): Okay, "pattern" in the flavortext is interesting. Cryptogram patterns, maybe?
(11:46:43 AM): Let's see what islands I can ID.
(11:47:57 AM): HONSHU...
(11:48:21 AM): CUBA...
(11:49:15 AM): OAHU...
(11:50:18 AM): NANTUCKET... which has the same pattern as EYESTALKS...
(11:50:58 AM): Ah, I see how this works.
(11:51:32 AM): Black ones I write under the colored circles, and I decode them with the appropriate island's crypto key.
(11:55:33 AM): GREENLAND / PASSENGER...
(12:12:40 PM): ??C?A ?T?D ?R??N?
(12:15:11 PM): U?C?A ?T?D ?R??NS
(12:15:14 PM): UNCHARTED?
(12:17:00 PM): TinEye-ing the lower left guy...
(12:18:33 PM): Oh! It's Billy Crystal as Fernando. Right.
(12:19:20 PM): Now TinEye-ing the lower right guy...
(12:23:40 PM): Er. Results are all in Arabic.
(12:23:46 PM): Probably should have expected that.
(12:28:55 PM): Seeing if TinEye works on islands.
(12:30:41 PM): No, not really.
(12:43:27 PM): Whoo, pattern-matching for Fernando gave me Dominica, which also gives me... Scarborough, it looks like it's called?
(12:43:54 PM): Oh! No, that's the island of Tobago.
(12:46:31 PM): And that's just a generic SHEIKH, looks like.
(12:46:38 PM): So UNCHARTED ?RO?NS.
(12:50:30 PM): Guessed DROWNS. I am going to get this last damned island if it kills me.
(12:54:59 PM): Hispaniola!
(12:57:27 PM): And downspouts. *finally puts this one down*
(12:57:52 PM): There's symbols on the doorframes above the chambers... Is that for meta or metameta purposes?
(12:58:37 PM): Old Man of the Sea is next.
(1:00:26 PM): 18 items on the to-do list, counting the parenthetical, and two sets of 18 clues.
(1:08:24 PM): Things on the left, I think, are made up of a tool for a task, stuffed with an answer from the right, plus another letter. R(ADIOS)(C)OPE...
(1:10:40 PM): SP(ACES)(U)IT...
(1:12:56 PM): CO(UNTER)(T)OP...
(1:13:02 PM): Yeah, this is the right way to go.
(1:32:31 PM): ???E?C?A?S?U??T?ON
(1:36:35 PM): Not quite enough to get it yet.
(1:36:57 PM): FLUORESCENT LIGHT is way too long to work, isn't it?
(1:37:57 PM): ??WE?C?A?S?U??T?ON
(1:47:33 PM): LOWER-CLASS?
(1:47:51 PM): Yes!
(1:48:01 PM): A lot of possibilities for the rest, though.
(1:53:31 PM): ?U?CT?ON
(1:53:43 PM): Pretty sure it's either JUNCTION or FUNCTION. FUNCTION is more thematic...
(1:53:57 PM): Ding!
(1:54:07 PM): I'll come back to this later. Very nice one!
(1:54:55 PM): Rows Garden / Snakes thing?
(2:18:42 PM): There is an Internet Movie Firearm Database. That is terrifying.
(3:22:58 PM): Done! CUPIDITY and BOOTSTRAPS.
(3:24:47 PM): Three Ladies next.
(3:46:31 PM): Okay, got a message about paying attention to food and drink, and several answers are foods and drinks...
(3:49:31 PM): ...and there's a possible hint to a Bacon cipher.
(3:49:49 PM): First ?'d column has exactly five letters from foods or drinks...
(3:50:43 PM): Haha, BIG ACROSTIC FAIL
(3:51:16 PM): HEY now... every single letter of BLOODY MARY falls in a ?'d column.
(3:54:08 PM): And with GREEN TEA and ABSINTHE letters circled too, I'm starting to see a grid pattern...
(3:58:36 PM): Bacon cipher with As for drinks and Bs for foods gives CAROUSED / AIRS. Brilliant!
(4:02:36 PM): Tent cryptic next.
(4:06:07 PM): 11A is a beautiful &lit.
(4:18:29 PM): And 31A is nice too.
(4:20:46 PM): And after Googling up the two I hadn't heard of (LORICA and REBATO), I'm ready to do the chess thing.
(5:56:09 PM): One word is GREENHORN...
(5:59:50 PM): A GNOMEN FOR THE VICTOR AT THE BUSTLE OF ZAMA? I think?
(6:00:27 PM): No, BATTLE OF ZAMA.
(6:01:07 PM): (And AGNOMEN.)
(6:01:22 PM): AFRICANUS?
(6:01:44 PM): Oh thank God I'm done with this one.
(6:02:42 PM): Winged Men now.
(6:20:03 PM): TAKE FLIGHT AND ASPIRER.
(6:20:44 PM): That was well done and easy. Break now for a snack and drink.
(6:21:48 PM): Back. Going to stare at the meta(s) a bit.
(6:23:15 PM): Ooh, DROWNS = SWORD (a blade) + N.
(6:24:04 PM): And RAPIER + S = ASPIRER!
(6:27:22 PM): CLAYMORE + D = COMRADELY...
(6:28:20 PM): Possibly SAI + R = AIRS?
(6:30:22 PM): CLEAVER + I = RECEIVAL
(6:32:00 PM): SCROLL SAW + E = LOWER-CLASS! Nice.
(6:37:43 PM): I don't see an ordering mech yet... but maybe one of the other two sets uses the Sinbad voyages as its mech? Let me check to see if the intro rules that out...
(6:39:17 PM): "That is not relevant here." I'll take that as a no for now.
(6:39:41 PM): The Blade chamber has nine spaces...
(6:40:14 PM): Ice has eight, Fire has seven. That's twenty-four in all; guessing those are the group sizes?
(6:42:21 PM): Moving to Cyclopes.
(6:49:10 PM): Found Bridget Jones's Diary. Was there a one-eyed character in that?
(6:51:14 PM): Not that I can tell. There was an artist on the soundtrack who wears an eyepatch, though?
(6:52:21 PM): Found MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO...
(6:56:14 PM): THRONE OF BLOOD?
(6:57:08 PM): Oh, are these all remakes of classic stories?
(6:57:15 PM): Odyssey, Macbeth...
(6:58:58 PM): Ahh, that's 10, not IO THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU.
(7:01:23 PM): Bridget Jones doesn't appear at first glance to be a remake.
(7:04:57 PM): I see FOIL + O = FOLIO...
(7:12:37 PM): AND TRY FOLIO? What?
(7:14:37 PM): Oh! Remake titles can go in too, to spell ALTERNATIVE. That must've taken some doing...
(7:15:33 PM): Going to try IRON SIDES for the Blades chamber...
(7:16:42 PM): Yay! Wonder if there was an ordering mech to it?
(7:16:48 PM): *jots down the symbols*
(7:20:00 PM): Okay, I should be able to get these last two metas, shouldn't I?
(7:21:22 PM): Ohh, ordering mech was length.
(7:21:41 PM): A two-letter blade that anagrams with I?
(7:21:59 PM): Er... IXA?
(7:25:43 PM): AMPHIT(HEAT)ER, TAKE F(LIGHT), UN(CHAR)TED?
(7:26:32 PM): No, it needs at least one from AFRICANUS or GREENHORN.
(7:27:48 PM): There's two puzzles left, both of which must supply a missing Blade and one other answer apiece.
(7:28:24 PM): I half-want to have a set that starts A-H...
(7:32:28 PM): I have a B, a C, a D, an F, a G, and an H, along with four As and another C.
(7:37:16 PM): Okay, okay, I'll get the scissors and do the sudoku.
(7:54:42 PM): Finally done cutting. Let's see what I can do...
(8:12:08 PM): Ugh. Getting nowhere. Back to the funny hunchback...
(8:13:21 PM): Too many places I could go with this flavortext...
(8:22:07 PM): I want this to be a jigsaw word search, but of what? Comedians that died early?
(8:25:38 PM): Or Boggle-y find-the-comedian with some letters wrong? I can get WANDA SYKES to work...
(8:26:34 PM): And there's GILDA RADNER...
(8:27:01 PM): DANA CARVEY... this is working.
(8:27:11 PM): There's always one wrong and one left over, I think?
(8:31:01 PM): Lily Tomlin's is ambiguous...
(8:43:13 PM): Ah, finally, here we go: They pair up and swap two letters. Dana Carvey and Lily Tomlin...
(8:44:55 PM): Kimmel and Sykes...
(8:55:33 PM): Oh, duh, they're in alphabetical order.
(8:57:18 PM): There's still always one left over, and I think it stays in the same position between pairs...
(9:02:17 PM): ...And it's a different position for each pair. THE SOLUTION BAS??IT...
(9:03:56 PM): BASMATI... Checking non-spare pairs now...
(9:06:22 PM): They're not all in different positions. But they're associated with the spares, which are. Checking that...
(9:17:24 PM): All comics ID'd now. Where's the other word?
(9:25:21 PM): Eh, it's a blade anyway. Back to staring at the metas?
(9:37:32 PM): TAKE FLIGHT has a scrambled FLAKE in it...
(9:37:54 PM): But I don't see any scrambled FROST, RIME, SNOW...
(9:39:57 PM): Oh hey, maybe I was on the right track with CHAR etc. back there, but with synonym of other senses of FIRE, too...
(9:40:12 PM): (BOOT)STRAPS, AFRI(CAN)US...
(9:41:44 PM): Too unconstrained.
(9:42:35 PM): But maybe it's a reverse of the 1952 meta? UN(CHAR)TED becomes UN(I)TED?
(9:51:34 PM): They're all in different spots in their answers! BOOT, AROUSE, CHAR, ZING, CAN, LIGHT, HEATER, I think.
(9:53:16 PM): And the rest are an A-H minus the E.
(9:57:09 PM): A DELUGE!
(9:57:58 PM): Woohoo! Okay, more symbols to copy down.
(10:06:51 PM): So if I can get Ice with one missing, so much the better. (Though I won't count out an all-answers metameta like last time...)
(10:12:14 PM): Just Googling the lot turns up wordlists, as I pretty much expected.
(10:12:32 PM): Some odd, forced-looking endings. BASMATI, HECATOMB...
(10:13:00 PM): Anagrams have been done. Hidden words have been done. What hasn't been done?
(10:19:56 PM): What's icy? Cubes. Er. Things at zero degrees.
(10:20:08 PM): Diamonds.
(10:20:26 PM): Though that was done in TOMOTS.
(10:22:47 PM): To ice someone is to kill them... *notices the skeleton in the art*
(10:23:12 PM): Though that's not really connection enough to ice; that connects to blades too.
(10:27:06 PM): RADIO TNT? Heh, no.
(10:27:15 PM): Reading down columns has been done too.
(10:29:15 PM): There's no one letter they all have in common. BASMATI and GREENHORN see to that.
(10:30:18 PM): Oh! BASMATI = R + ICE!
(10:31:29 PM): AVAR + ICE, SACRIF + ICE...
(10:31:48 PM): NOV + ICE...
(10:32:08 PM): CHO + ICE...
(10:33:22 PM): CRAMPONS.
(10:37:12 PM): Okay, symbols almost completely copied over. Demon battle coming up...
(10:41:37 PM): Printed. Yep, it's an all-answers metameta. Let's see how far I can get.
(11:09:07 PM): Wow, this is a lot harder than it looks. Breaking for a bit.
(11:19:54 PM): Eyes... not so much with the focusing. Breaking for a LARGER bit.
And that's where I stopped logging. I went to sleep a while later, and with fresh eyes the next day I managed to get the metameta; having recorded the answer FUNCTION instead of FUNCTIONS hurt me for a long while. In between the time when I submitted the answer and the time I heard back, I found the other answer for Tailor and semi-miraculously backsolved the answer RECONSTRUCT from knowing that it had to have the pattern R????S????T or T????S????R and be an S transaddition of a blade. EXPENSE was a slightly easier backsolve. A few days later I did finally forward-solve Serendib with a nudge from canadianpuzzler , though I did it through trial-and-error rather than the deterministic solution that existed.