Paingram

Paingram is a direct sequel to Pangrams and assumes familiarity with the latter.

Like in Pangrams, the first step is to solve for the letterbanks, which are still 7 unique letters and sorted alphabetically.

The twist in Paingram is that these are not the letterbanks we will be using to answer the clues, at least not in their current form. As the flavor text says, we need to cross-pollinate them. The art might provide some clue as to what this means: unlike in Pangrams, there are now yellow hexagons in the center of each flower and the bees are carrying similar yellow hexagons. It could be that they are moving the yellow letters between flowers. The total number of clues is also relevant: there are 30 of them arranged as 15 pairs, which is 6-choose-2. Since we have 6 original letterbanks, each bank will cross-pollinate with each other bank exactly once.

For an example break-in, if we assume the Klingon referenced in the first row below is Worf, we see that most of the letters of WORF appear in FRONTAL or GROWLED, but we would need to swap in an additional letter from the other to get the missing W or F. Once we figure out it's FLAT WORF, we know it must use FRONTAL with the N swapped for the W in GROWLED. This leaves us with the other letterbank GRONLED, which is used for the corresponding clue on the same line, "Buuuuuuuuuuuuck," and helps us solve LONG DEER.

At some point, we should notice a pattern in the letters being swapped. First, each word always trades away the same letter. Additionally, this letter is always the center/fourth one in the word (like how each flower's yellow letter is at its center). Once we know this, it helps us weed out potential pangrams we know must be impossible because they contain more than one of our center letters: [N,W,K,I,B,C]. It also lets us narrow down the pairings significantly if we can find just one word of a clue's answer. In the earlier example, knowing the specifics about center letters swapping would give us the exact banks as soon as we solve WORF, because we know that in the FRONTAL/GROWLED pair that the F cannot swap while the W can, and furthermore that it must swap with the N.

Once we've solved all the pangrams, keeping in mind some of the principles we used in Pangrams, such as answers being multi-word and often using slang, we will have constructed something equivalent to the below table. Like before, the first number following each clue is an index and the second is an enumeration.

Clue	Pangram	Letterbank	Extract	Clue	Pangram	Letterbank	Extract
The outcome of a Klingon vs steamroller fight is a… (1/8)	FLAT WORF	FROWTAL	F	Buuuuuuuuuuuuck (5/8)	LONG DEER	GRONLED	D
Crude from Clifford (8/9)	RED DOG OIL	GROILED	I	How an alien might describe slightly melted snow, or the reason your flintlock won't fire (9/9)	WET POWDER	PERWDOT	R
The principles of Beedism (8/11)	HONEY TENETS	HOTNEYS	N	A lifetime supply of mac and cheese sure is a… (8/10)	LOT OF KRAFT	FROKTAL	A
Band headed by Ovis Osbourne (7/12)	BLEAT SABBATH	SATBHEL	A	Inspired by learning V's cyberpunk background, he left Sesame Street for Wall Street (4/9)	CORPO ELMO	PROCLEM	P
Rejected unit of digging strength (3/9)	MOLEPOWER	PROWLEM	L	Scarfed down Chinese appetizer (6/14)	GOBBLED EGGROLL	GROBLED	E
Paper entitled "The Morality of Jumping Off Me Out of a Pit" (11/12)	YOSHI'S THESIS	HOTIEYS	I	BTS blew up so hard overseas you could call them a… (7/11)	KPOP TORPEDO	PERKDOT	R
What I prefer about dating a mime over my last boyfriend (3/11)	HE TALKS LESS	SATKHEL	T	“Great! Fondue!” (1/12)	YES HOT CHEESE	HOTCEYS	Y
What might have happened to Willem Dafoe and Alfred Molina, if the movies gave Spider-Man a gun (11/11)	SHOT BY TOBEY	HOTBEYS	Y	This blep? (2/8)	PORK MLEM	PROKLEM	O
Corn chip cornbread (1/9)	FRITO LOAF	FROITAL	F	Often bullied expert on the Wizarding World (7/10)	POTTER NERD	PERNDOT	N
M.D. School or School, M.D. (7/9)	DR COLLEGE	GROCLED	E	“Of course I drag my cart everywhere. Are you saying there's something that would make it easier?” (7/11)	WHAT'S A WHEEL	SATWHEL	W
The best droid to have at a party - he's brought drugs! (4/9)	DOPE ROBOT	PERBDOT	E	A politician making a moray appeal might say… (1/8)	I'M PRO EEL	PROILEM	I
Best Hairdo 2024 vote (8/10)	AFRO BALLOT	FROBTAL	L	Fruit candy so sour it ties your face into knots! (5/9)	LEMON ROPE	PRONLEM	N
This dog has to save you, because she thinks God won’t (5/13)	ATHEIST LASSIE	SATIHEL	I	1) Approach silently. 2) Hiss loudly. 3) Explode violently. (10/11)	CREEPER TODO	PERCDOT	D
People who would say "OMG I LOVE YOU NORSE GODDESS" (7/8)	HEL STANS	SATNHEL	N	A Swiss army knife that has a Swiss army knife that has a Swiss army knife… (9/11)	FRACTAL TOOL	FROCTAL	O
Record of winning boxing (6/8)	KO LEDGER	GROKLED	G	What I say to my friend when they show up with a cool stringy toy (5/12)	HEY SWEET YOYO	HOTWEYS	W

This leaves us with the clue phrases FINALITY FEELING and DRAPERY ON WINDOW, which can solve to CLOSURE and CURTAIN, two words with 7 unique letters like our original letterbanks. But these don't fit with our final clue phrase "What can we do to get this particularly resistant flower to open up? (11) (9)". If we do-it-again and cross-pollinate the center letters of these words we get the letterbanks CLOTURE and CURSAIN, which each have only one pangram fitting the enumeration. Together these make our final answer ELECTROCUTE NARCISSUS.

Authors' Notes

The puzzle is entitled Paingram because in keeping with the letter swap theme, it's Pangrams + I - S.

We considered several ways to make a sequel to Pangrams, most of which involved some kind of letterbank swapping or replacement. This idea was one of the most constrained, as we needed to find 6 letterbank words with common letters but whose center letters didn't appear in each other at all, and that contained the letters for our final clue phrases in all the correct pairings. OneLook was a critical help here.

Like in Pangrams, where EVIL PUN and VILE PUN extract to the same thing, we made sure that LOT OF KRAFT and LOTTA KRAFT both work for that clue.

We chose many of the pangrams for this puzzle because we thought they created a funny visual in our heads. In the case of PORK MLEM, there's just a perfect picture already, so we put that in.