This puzzle was inspired by Quiara over on the Crosscord, who shared this grid with no three letter entries. 4-Down was my seed, as I'd watched it recently on the Criterion Channel's Afrofuturism playlist. I initially hit cluers block and had trouble coming up with anything interesting, but I came back to the puzzle a bit later and was able to make progress. I'm particularly fond of the clues for 9-Across (set a reminder for 8 years from now!) and 10-Down, and I was excited to include the very timely clue for 38-Across.
Puzzle #5: Not a square (midi)
This was an interesting puzzle to make. I started with a regular 9x midi, using 19A as my seed, which is a word I've been dying to use since learning it from the Great British Bake Off. But then I decided to make a mini-theme and have the central down answer be a sort of counterpart. To keep the symmetry of their crossing being at the center, I extended the height and then found an interesting entry that I liked.
Working on this grid was surprisingly difficult, since I didn't have many options to partition it; my choices were either:
- a three stack in the center, which I felt would dilute the theme of the central entry a bit too much
- the only connection between top and bottom being through the central square (by extending the two block fingers to three
- what I decided on, having two additional 11-length downs. This felt least objectionable since they're offset from the center. And I was able to come up with some satisfactory entries, with clues that hopefully you find interesting!
Other notes:
- I worry that some of the clues are too personally specific, but I erred on the side of amusing myself since who cares about my blog anyway! That particularly applies to 2D, so if you didn't get the reference check it out.
- 12A is very stupid, and I hope you appreciate it.
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