Note: For anyone with potentially delicate sensibilities, this puzzle qualifies as a crassword!
Publishing puzzles two months in a row---take that, impostor syndrome!
Uh, wait, where did this image come from?
Randomly started thinking how terrible a theme idea this would be, and mentioned
the only entry I'd been able to come up so far to Lily Geller, assuming it would just be a
one-off joke. Then she came up with another one and made the idea actually
seem plausible. So, when you realize what the theme is, please jot down your
complaints and pop them in the mail to Lily Geller at 4 Privet Drive, Natick,
MA 01760.
What does this even have to do with---ohhhh, that's terrible.
We had a lot of fun trying to come up with possible themers, but because of constraints in the concept, it's a pretty narrow set, with some non-symmetrical orphans that just didn't seem to fit. And since the concept really lives or dies based on whether the themers eventually click and give that "aha!" moment, we felt like we had to be strict on what was allowed, which ruled out a bunch of others. I definitely love the final themer set, but the list of rejected entries also has some absolute gold. If only there was a good way to share them...
Well that's just juvenile. I love it.
Thanks to Lily for brainstorming and vetting many, many iterations of the grid, as always, and to Brett Rose, Rob Becker, and Monica Iyer for a ton of good test-solving feedback. It was especially hard to guess from inside the construction what would and wouldn't click with this one, so the theme and some cluing angles very much benefited from the extra tightening. I also outright stole a couple clue ideas, no regerts.
I would also like to make clear that I am NOT above emotional
manipulation. Please solve this for my birthday and let me know what
you think. Come on people, I wanna see at least one "OMG" and one
disappointed "David." by the end of the day!
You wouldn't want to disappoint this good bubbeleh, would you?
I enjoyed this! I'm kind of new to indie puzzles, so I'm not used to seeing entries like 17A. LOL. I loved the cluing to 16A. It sounds like something Ambrose Bierce would write. Happy Birthday!
ReplyDeleteThanks Eric, glad you liked it! I doubt 17A will be a regular feature in my puzzles, either, but it was genuinely too fun thinking about not to eventually inflict on people.
DeleteBrb, now brainstorming something with AmBRO Bierce and Alexis de TOKEville...