October 26, 2026

Today’s Paper

Author: Cartwheel

  • Wordplay: Fortress

    If it wasn’t obvious, PYRO and DEMO were referring to the Team Fortress 2 classes.

    My personal favorite entries were OREOS and ENTER. Neither were particularly clever but “Monochrome Sandwiches” is the sadly necessary result of a thousand years clueing the word “Oreo” that i quite liked. “Submission button” accidentally sounded like a prostate euphemism, but I think that makes the clue better.

    I’m also going to coin this puzzle a “Fuckkkk Why Didn’t I Do This Last Night” puzzle. I made it in the morning before I had to do something. This is not the first and will not be the last.

  • #143: Fortress

  • This Day in History: The War Measures Act

    This Day in History: The War Measures Act

    We at The Aspecticor Times take the opportunity to recognize Canadian history today with the bully pulpit gifted to us.

    (more…)

  • Wordplay: Between Shades

    Welcome to the first Wordplay column! I didn’t think I’d do this but Wordplay is like the third thing on the NYTimes Games page so I felt like I had to make my own rip-off.

    Spoilers for the aforementioned mini ‘Between Shades!!!’

    I thought I’d use this to basically explain how I find Schrödinger’s crossword-applicable words.

    With the help of Adam Aaronson’s Wordlisted web tool it’s a lot easier to find a pairs of words that can have a letter swapped out.

    First you have to select “Regex replacement”

    So let’s say I decided I wanted GREY/GRAY to be closer to the middle of the puzzle, meaning that the crossing answer’s E/A replacement would be in, say, the third letter, I’d find it like this.

    This looks quite confusing at first but it’s rather simple, mostly because this is the only thing I am capable of doing with the regex nonsense. This took me like a solid day to figure out don’t worry. I am going to be using insanely wrong terminology so forgive me regexheads.

    So for the first text box:

    The ^ and $ are merely to note the start and end. The parenthesis are basically defining the sections that the next text box will refer back to later, the periods inside them are serving as wildcard single characters, and the E is, well, the E.

    So basically that first text box is just there to find every word that goes xxExx (blEnd, crEam, etc).

    The second text box:

    The $1 and $2 are essentially calling for each (..) section from the previous text box and sandwiching the A with them. So it takes, say the (bl) and (nd) of blEnd, then remixes it back to make blAnd. It does this hundreds of times and checks the outputs against the dictionary to see what are actually words or not until it comes out with a list like this.

    I realize now that I am really bad at explaining concepts. If this didn’t explain it I am so sorry but I cannot help you anymore.

    I also did this one time with a much more complicated three-word Schrödinger and I had to pull out an Excel sheet it was crazy.

  • #142: Between Shades

  • The Aspecticor Times Mini #141: Rabbit

  • Aspecticor Announces Minecraft Marathon Stream

    Aspecticor Announces Minecraft Marathon Stream

    In the wake of the recently begun Kai Cenat and IShowSpeed Minecraft challenge marathon stream, where the two are to beat every Minecraft boss on the games “hardcore” permadeath difficulty, the Canadian livestreamer Aspecticor is to start his own, allegedly harder marathon.

    “So instead of the quite frankly easy challenge of beating every boss, I’ve elected to say the Lord’s name in vain and to break several other sins in game.” said the streamer. “As a devout Christian, it may take months, if not years to gain the strength to betray Christ in such a fashion.”

    Aspecticor is set to begin on Sunday, an attempt at completing his first sin of the stream.

  • The Aspecticor Times Mini #140: Yes, Chef!

  • Mantras of a Monster: The “Aspecticorisms” of Aspecticor

    Mantras of a Monster: The “Aspecticorisms” of Aspecticor

    To know your enemy you first have to study their tells. In the case of Aspecticor, he has many. Here is quick cheat sheet of Aspecticor’s most common phrases and “stims,” whatever that means.

    “Credit card vertical”

    Stolen from a friend in school, this phrase likely relates to Aspecticor and his people’s lack of upwards athleticism. Remember how this phrase was stolen from someone else. You will see more stolen examples soon.

    “You disingenuous so-and-so!”

    Stolen from Northernlion. That was quick!

    “Jerry!”

    Aspecticor regularly demonstrates his support of the ‘Seinfeld’ creator.

    “Is he stupid?”

    Aspecticor almost always is referring to himself. Please be nicer to yourself, Aspect. It is sadder when it’s you instead of us bullying you.

    “For sharks”

    Replacing “sure” with “sharks” might be a hint at Aspecticor’s fursona. Yes Aspecticor there are shark furries. Sometimes they are literally furred sharks, too. The Overton window slides so much farther than you can imagine.

    “Beg for your life”

    Said to innocent chatters who anger him, asking them to argue for why they shouldn’t be banned. One time he said this to a chatter asking for help coming out. Sorry I don’t know why I said that no he didn’t. So sorry. Please ignore that.

    “Bad Sally”

    He calls things “bad Sally” sometimes. Who the fuck is Sally?

    “Oh my lanta”

    Aspecticor is a devout Christian and would never take the Lord’s name in vain.

    “Wait a fucking tick”

    Aspecticor is a devout clockmaker and his standard unit of time is in relation to clocks and other timekeeping devices.

    “I can fix her”

    Said right before his run is killed.

    “Jasper County motherfuckers! I’m coming for you!”

    He says this popular video’s phrase after quite literally any conflict or resistance.

    “What’s his nuts”

    Speak normally you maniac.

    “Owned in the marketplace of ideas”

    Googled this phrase and I think he might have stolen this from Hasan Piker, the socialist-adored livestreamer who once said “America deserved 9/11.” Nah I’m just fuckin’ with you imagine if I was one of those guys though lmao.

    “Sacrebleu, Monsieur!”

    I condemn the use of the French language in Aspecticor’s livestreams.

    “… look like the guy who ate Aspecticor”

    This odd phrase is used to describe, usually himself, getting buffer or otherwise more built, in sick twisted hypotheticals relating to exercise. Freak.

    “Oh wait, you CAN’T!”

    He manages to bring this quote up at literally any time. He even changes the words to make it fit in more. He has an issue.

    “Buddy guy”

    He often calls people notably not buddies “buddy guys.” It’s sick. Be fucking honest for once.

    “Mother Father Sister Brother”

    Aspecticor is a staunch advocate for the nuclear family structure.

    “Speak to that”

    He says this when he reads my messages sometimes and that hurts my feelings. Us chatters who type bullshit should have some god-damned respect!

    “Did you see it?”

    He read it in the voice didn’t he.

    “Noooo, seriously? Nooooo, seriously? KQLY VAC ban-ned?”

    Keep this Counter-Strike bullshit the fuck away from us, Aspecticor. This is your final warning.

    “You guys wanna hear my Chinese accent?”

    He says this regularly.

    “Editor…”

    He has not had an editor in like a year and a half. He asked an editor to delete something from a stream like a month ago. He’s gone mad.

    “I’ll be going live tomorrow”

    Haha good one.

    “Someone commented on my video…”

    Infinite YouTube Shorts engagement glitch (not patched).

    Now that you’ve learned the cues, hit the 8-ball. Operation Call & Response is a go. I repeat, Operation Call & Response is a go.

  • The Aspecticor Times Mini #139: On/Off