The font in this puzzle is the same font used by the Cycle modules created by SpeakingEvil. Furthermore, those modules use colors to distinguish themselves. Some of those colors are also used by Jumble Cycle but not all of them.
Hovering over the letters shows us that letters with the same color in the same row are “linked” somehow. Let’s start with the first one: in the first row, W and N are both pink. The Cycle module that uses pink lettering is Pigpen Cycle.
The W and N are in first and fourth place. Turns out there’s only one word in Pigpen Cycle that fits this pattern — WINNABLE — which leads us to the corresponding response word — FORTUNES — which has F and T in the first and fourth place. Indeed the word on the right, FROTHING, also has F and T in the same places! This confirms that we are on the right track. But it also tells us that all of the colored letters, and the words on the right, are only there to discover the mechanic; the real puzzle is in the last line, where there are no letters.
The key insights are:
Now we can use the mechanics of the puzzle to reconstruct the word that should go where the question marks are.
| Letters | Color | Module | Word | Response | Letters |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| H␣␣L␣␣␣␣ | Cyan | Playfair Cycle | HOTLINKS | FORTUNES | F␣␣T␣␣␣␣ |
| ␣E␣␣␣␣␣E | Yellow | Affine Cycle | RELATIVE | FINDINGS | ␣I␣␣␣␣␣S |
| ␣␣L␣H␣␣␣ | Blue | Hill Cycle | BULKHEAD | DECEIVED | ␣␣C␣I␣␣␣ |
| ␣␣␣␣␣OL␣ | Red | Ultimate Cycle | KILOVOLT | BILLIONS | ␣␣␣␣␣ON␣ |
FICTIONS