Allison

One of those puzzles where the first pass through you get barely anything, but then things start falling into place one by one...before you know it, you're done! No frustrating bits. Great puzzle.

I was very confident in my made-up word, POOPART. Alas, it wasn't to be.

Unless I'm missing some usage of it, stays are not a component of a corset at all...stays are a different garment. Can some fashion historian out there correct me if I'm wrong?

This felt like a puzzle designed for me! Normally I struggle with some of the niche trivia like proper nouns and sports stuff, but this puzzle was right up my alley. Thanks to Sonic (and specifically Knuckles) for my echidna knowledge, lol. Fun and pleasant Thursday.

I do feel that "Contacted quickly online, informally" should be IMed rather than DMed....since the "I" stands for instant, and the clue specifies "quickly". But maybe that's just me yearning for the AIM days.

Fun puzzle overall, but I did find it jarring to see "lamer" in this context. I know people argue about whether this is a genuinely offensive term, but especially in an official NYT crossword (and a crossword that has ASL as one of the other hints!) it strikes me as something that should have ideally been caught and removed in editing. Why use language around disability in that way? We have so many other options.