Looking for today's Connections answer for puzzle #551 on December 13, the Connections answer for puzzle #551 on December 13 swung back towards the easy side compared to yesterday's puzzle, and the Connections Companion rated this puzzle 1.5 out of 5 for difficulty.

We update our Connections clues and hints daily. And if the hints aren't enough, see the four answers below, along with the category name and related words.

In addition, for those of you reading this in a different time zone, I have included a reflection on yesterday's puzzle 550.

There are spoilers for Connection #551. Only those who want to know the answer to today's Connections should read on.

Or see our NYT Connections How to Play Guide for tips on how to solve the puzzle without our help.

While today's wordle solution guide recommends the best wordle starting words as a strategy, the Connections solution depends on identifying the categories that are connected from the 16 words. The difficulty of each category is represented by a color, with yellow being the easiest grouping and purple the most difficult. Hints are helpful as the answer is displayed after four wrong guesses.

Today's connection words are: Trash, Phish, Crush, Troll, Bore, Spam, Links, Squirt, Sprite, Towed, Giant, Drafts, Pixie, Sent, Starry, Dragon.

If you need a hint to help you solve the groupings, here are each of the themes in order of difficulty:

These hints should at least give you an idea of how to find the answer to today's connection. If not, please continue reading for larger hints. Also, if you just want the answer, scroll down further. [drink soda, read fantasy novels, ignore emails, and don't think about the band Phish.

Now for the answer to today's game #551 Connection.

Drum roll please.

This week has been rough, between yesterday's pictorial puzzle from rank 1, which we've never seen before, and today's big turnaround to rank 1.

Today's 1.5 rank puzzle was surprisingly easier than Wednesday's 1 rank puzzle.

Maybe I drink too much soda, but I saw Crush and Sprite and immediately thought of soda; Sprite could be lumped in with Pixie, but it's obvious once you drink the soda. Starry is less obvious, but used to be called Sierra Mist (Pepsi's version of Sprite).

I looked at the mail folders in the green categories of Drafts, Sent, Spam, and Trash, but skipped over them to grab the fantasy creatures Dragon, Giant, Pixie, and Troll because I thought they were yellow groups.

I was frustrated, so I grabbed the green words to tie it all together.

And end up with animal homonyms for bore (boar), links (lynx), phish (fish), and towed (toad). I had skipped over some of these looking for bands for phish before I saw the homonym links.

I am reading this late in the day. According to Connections Companion, the difficulty level was 3.6 out of 5.

When I opened today's puzzle and saw so many pictures, I was truly stunned. For a moment I thought it was broken. It's been another roller coaster ride at Connections this week, whether it was yesterday's 1-rank puzzle or today's picture puzzle.

I'm dissatisfied, but if you want an answer, this is how I got it. Complaints last.

I saw the gears and immediately thought they were teeth. Next to the zippers were saws and combs. The green fell out.

Purple came next because I was saying the image of the picture out loud. When he said bunks, beds, and mouths, it hit me. I wasn't sure if the triangle represented the delta or not, but none of the other pictures fit the bill, so here I guessed right.

The yellow 3/4 had two tees and two tees, but since the score is unreadable, this bar means nothing.

Blue summed up the rest of the image except for the 3T. It is indeed a gentle vow.

Thus ending with yellow.

Briefly, my complaints are as follows: 1) Several friends have pointed out that people with poor eyesight had bad luck with this puzzle because there is no alt text in this puzzle. This is a complete and unforced error. People who read braille can see the text in regular puzzles, but not the images.

And second, I do not like these pictogram puzzles. In a manner of speaking, it is not my favorite. I prefer the nuances of the words rather than trying to guess by hand what part of the image the picture puzzle is referring to. My personal hope is that you will not do this again. If you do, please at least provide alt text for those who can't see the image clearly.