Tara

Anyone else think PANTS is a perfectly reasonable answer for "Fly traps?" That hung me up for a long time.

Brilliant puzzle. Such a great idea for a theme!

Not me having AR in the center of the answer for "That really stinks!" and filling in a F and T ... Great puzzle and loved the novel theme execution.

Not me crying while reading the constructor notes... This was a beautiful puzzle and tribute, Adrianne. Thank you for sharing both with us!

I knew there would be some mixed feelings about this one, but I honestly loved this puzzle. It took me a while to figure it out, but RICEARONI was the clincher for me, because I recognized the "ONI" from the clue above. Once I had that, everything fell into place and it was fun to work out the WORMHOLES. The colour-coding helped a lot!

As a (very long ago) former flute player and not knowing TIGONS are a thing or who Lady Magic is, CLINKED was one the last to drop for me. *feverishly searches back to high school brain to remember if the keys might have plinked a little? If I blinked while playing?* Big face palm when I got it. Great puzzle!

TIL that aardvark and anteater contain the same number of letters. Great puzzle!

Neat theme. Inuit is already plural - it means "the people" in the Inuktut language.

Deb, I share a love of the word spelunk. It made my morning to see it here.

dating myself here, but CDS are also stored in plastic protectors, and how am I to know that WCI isn't a console of some kind? Ha. That mistake took a while to find. Also very much agree with the Wounded knee comments.

Love the "major undertaking" clue.

This was a complete delight for me. Sometimes I'm just on the same wavelength as the constructor and this was one of those days! Thanks, Alina.

I'm not normally a Roman numerals fan, but I really loved this puzzle. The theme answers required the perfectly satisfying kind of mental gymnastics. Great clueing, if a little on the straightforward side - as clued, I agree with others that it might have been better suited to a Wednesday.

I really loved the clueing in this one!

The revealer made me lol when I got it. Great idea for a theme!

Jeez. Chill out, people - crosswords are GAMES. Personally, I loved this puzzle. There are plenty of crosswords that aren't my cup of tea, but knowing the amount of work that goes into constructing puzzles, I sure wouldn't write a negative comment about them.

Ouch for the Stanley Cup clue! - every Canadian Great puzzle otherwise ;)

I'm 50 and played this game as a kid! Not so modern ;)

I loved this theme - perfect wordplay, IMO. Even with the COMmon starts (ha), each answer took me a couple crosses to figure out because of the changed pronunciation, which made it such a fun challenge. Thank you!

What a great Monday puzzle! Thanks, Alana.