Reply Guys

*yawn* I was just resting my eyes after that August post, did I miss anything important? 

Oof, been a while since I posted anything---just lucky that I don't have any subscribers to be disappointed in me. I think between pandemic and the election all of my fun productivity energy got emptied, but I'm starting to circle back to half- or mostly-finished puzzles from 2020, and check all those indecipherable notes I've been leaving myself about new theme ideas. So I'll try and get back in the habit for 2021, at least one *something* a month. Today I've got a collab with Jesse Lansner!

PUZ File

PDF File:

Solution:

The name of today's puzzle, "Reply Guys," is obviously taken from our fledgling tag team wrestling duo. We're terrible. But I'm glad we were able to add to the current trend of puzzles that started as fun, dumb ideas on Crossword Twitter, where a crowdsource or joke can quickly turn into a surprisingly legit joint for The Blogs(TM).

#WomeninSTEM get a lot of “Reply Guys” who repeat the same unhelpful comments.@shrewshrew and I (a woman & a man in science) have attempted to catalog those replies, to save us all the trouble of writing new responses every time.

presenting THE NINE TYPES OF REPLY GUYS

(1/n) pic.twitter.com/0ewNRJloLu

— Scott Barolo (@sbarolo) September 3, 2018

The idea for this one got bounced around a year and a half ago.  For an idea of the timeline, we had a themer set within hours, a grid for the themers within days, and then *checks notes* 8 months to fill the grid?!  Okay, it's possible we put this one on the back-back-back-back-burner.  But hopefully the end result is better because we took our time!  We split responsibilities on filling the (over-sized) grid and on cluing, so the end result should be a pretty good blend of our styles.  And without a deadline, we managed to squash some late-arising dupes and a couple gluey entries with a helper square that ONLY made us rejigger the literal central core of the grid.  Easy peasy!

Make sure to let us know "Thanks, I hate it" in the comments and on Twitter!

Also, here's a puppy.