Beat The Atlantic Games Today: All the Answers for December 19, 2025

Not exactly your usual Hollywood bulletin, but I like a good brain-cleanse between trailers. The Atlantic Games dropped solutions for their December 19, 2025 lineup, and if you got stuck on anything from Fluxis to that punchy 9x9 crossword, here’s the clean, spoiler-filled rundown. A couple of fun twists in here, plus a small date goof at the end that made me squint.

• Fluxis: connections on a tight leash

  Base word: TIMING

  The chain builds like this:

  - Category: all consonants different → GABERDINE (pulling the G from TIMING)

  - Category: no repeated letters → DINER

  - Category: alternating vowel/consonant → RAT (taking the R from DINER and, to close the loop, finishing on T from TIMING)

• The Atlantic Crossword (9x9): compact grid, spicy fill

  There’s a show-tune clue in here that stands out, so I’ll set it off:

  'Work is what you do for others, Liebchen / _ is what you do for yourself'

  Here are the answers exactly as they land:

  Across

  1 Manning brother who attended Ole Miss — ELI

  4 'Work is what you do for others, Liebchen / _ is what you do for yourself' (Sunday in the Park With George lyrics) — ART

  7 Gingerbread cookies, typically — MEN

  8 The White Lotus actor James — THEO

  9 Super Bowl LX halftime-show performer — BADBUNNY

  11 Partiful product — EVITE

  12 Key to getting closure? — ESC

  14 Indigenous people also known as Arikaras — REES

  15 Cheese typically used in watermelon salad — FETA

  16 _-AFTRA (Hollywood labor union) — SAG

  17 Deck with a view? — TAROT

  18 Shell stations? — TACOBARS

  20 'No need to wake me!' — IMUP

  21 Peatey, Peanelope, or Peatrice in Toy Story 3 — PEA

  22 Creature that might sit on your lap while you work — PET

  23 Winter clock setting in L.A. — PST

  Down

  1 Old flames? — EMBERS

  2 Add 20 percent to your bill, say — LEAVEATIP

  3 Non-AAA title, typically — INDIEGAME

  4 Korean American actor Philip _ — AHN

  5 The Sex Lives of College Girls star who performed at Coachella — RENEERAPP

  6 Shops with a lot of character? — TOYSTORES

  8 Election Day: abbr. — TUE

  10 'Dynamite' band — BTS

  13 Played with a ragdoll, maybe — CATSAT

  15 Rad — FAB

  17 Alternative to bottom or vers — TOP

  19 'Control' + 'X' — CUT

• Bracket City: lean, mean word ladder

  This one is unforgiving if you fat-finger it, but the chain is clean once you see it:

  [prefix with dent for Poseidon 🧜‍♂️] — TRI

  [symmetrical letter] — X

  [powerful bee or chess piece 🐝] — QUEEN

  [un-creatively named Pixar movie featuring Lightning McQueen] — CARS

  [word before venture or custody] — JOINT

  [killer you take] — PAIN

  [messy kind of painting 🖐] — FINGER

  ['I’m __-jointed!' (said before someone does something horrible with their fingers)] — DOUBLE

  [kind of dancers sometimes spinning on their heads] — BREAK

  [🧑‍🍳 'Breaking' ➡️ ⬅️ hair day 💈] — BAD

  [one on your shoulder giving you bad advice 😇🤷‍♂️😈] — DEVIL

  [devil on a motorcycle 🏍️💨] — DARE

  [serious dare intensifier] — DOUBLE

  [generally desirable card in poker] — ACE

  [ ___maker (e.g. Bart Simpson or Dennis the Menace)] — TROUBLE

  ['double, double ___ and trouble' 🧙‍♀️🧙‍♀️🧙‍♀️] — TOIL

• Stacks: five new words from five drops

  Final stack from bottom to top: VANGUARD, MANTEL, EASIER, UNFURL, STALE.

  How to build it:

  - Drop ANNUAL in the middle to set the base: _ANGUAR_

  - Drop MASTER directly over that

  - Drop AFIELD as far right as it fits

  - Drop VENTURE as far left as it fits

  - Drop USUAL into the remaining gaps to lock the set

Note: everything here is labeled for Friday, December 19, 2025. Odd wrinkle: the wrap-up line in their post says December 9, 2025 instead of 19. Pretty clearly a typo, because the rest of the page is consistent.

Today’s batch leaned tough, but fair. If the crossword ate your lunch or you breezed through Bracket City, I want to hear which clue tripped you up most — or which one made you feel like a genius.