Looking for answers to today's Connections? The Connections Companion has a difficulty rating of 33 out of 5

We update our Connections hints and tips daily And if the hints aren't enough, you can see all four answers along with the category title and related words In addition, for those of you reading this in a different time zone, I've included a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #485

There are spoilers for connection 486 Only read this if you want to know the answer to today's connection

Alternatively, 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, 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

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

If you read these hints, you should at least find the answer to today's connection If not, please continue reading for larger hints Also, if you only want to know the answer, scroll down further

Here's a bigger clue: ignore the Powerpuff Girls Then drink some bubbly, read a magazine, and search the cupboards

Now, what's the answer to today's game #486 Connection?

Drum roll please

I was quite disappointed, perhaps unreasonably, that the Powerpuff Girls grouping was not given in today's puzzle Instead, a trap was presented Damn

Moving on, we were treated to bubbles, bubbles, bubbles in a row on the grid before ending up with bubbles

It was actually here that I discovered the cartoon traps, but with the bubbles gone, I moved on to the pitchforks and spins Billboard was a quick find from there; I'm not familiar with Mojo, but apparently it's a British magazine that's been around since 1993

The Green Group's category title burgeon surprised me, as I don't think I've ever seen this word without a past participle (-ed) or genitive (-ing) burgeon Has anyone ever said “or” will burgeon”? I feel like I'm doing something wrong, but I'm curious Anyway, green has BLOSSOM, DEVELOP, MATURE, and PROGRESS

Purple was also a category that strips out some of the words to find what you are really looking for Another was blah; anyway, this one was about setting the table with boiler (plate), butter (cup), jack (knife), and wither (spoon)

Are you reading this late in the day? According to Connections Companion, the difficulty level was 32 out of 5

Of course, Halloween is on my mind, so I got off to a cute start today with bats, pumpkins, spiders, and witches in the yellow group

I purposely tried going down the line, but ban, block, deny, ban was just as easy as the yellow category But I tried the bar and got a strike

From here I was a bit stuck, as I don't read music and didn't know that accidentals are like the symbols and types found in sheet music So I didn't know where it fit in and assumed it was purple

So I came up with the purple category and candy apples, candy bars, candy canes, candy corn

Blue in music happened to be notes, rests, and staves I learned something, but I don't know if it will be a clue for future sheet music