IL

While I found this hard to the point of frustration, I will not complain in detail about that, because the comments section has informed me that too many people are already complaining about how hard this was. But what I do want to say is, FEMININE SIDE, seriously? It's 2024, can we please leave these tired gender stereotypes in the past?

Vicious natick in the top left, MOET / MAC / ORE. Didn't know any of them and just guessed. Overall I did enjoy this one, and the theme clues are great, but a lot of the surrounding clues really tripped me up. ERITREA coming from Red Sea was hard for someone who knows the Latin words for read and sea but not a lot of proper nouns. And, looking it up, I like the clue even less. It comes most recently from Italian (mare eritreo) via the Latin "erythraeus" which is clearly a loanword from Greek and also not a phrase. Yes, the name itself emerged via Latin more recently than Greek, but the full phrase (mare erythreum) is not the full name for the country. I know this is pedantic but if I can't give into my worst pedantic impulses in the NYT crossword comments section, then where can I?

Typically very happy to say "it is not for everyone to know everything" about trivia clues outside my sphere of knowledge, and move on with my life. But who on god's green earth can rattle off the names of podcast producers?? Got that entirely from crossings, much guessing was involved at the fourth. Positive spin: thrilled to have learnt the charming word SMEW today.

I felt very smart for getting FLIP FLOP FLAP (and thus the theme) with only the starting F - so much fun! However I take issue with the implications of 44a - URANUS is certainly still funny to many grown adults :-)

This is a very fun theme, and I felt so satisfied when I worked it out, but I think crossing BAI with IMPA(NE)LING was a little cruel...

So much respect for stacking THE on top of THE and making it work with perfectly respectable fill either side! Cute little detail in a fun puzzle.

Incredible puzzle, made me feel very smart once I got my head around it! Had the vibe of a rewarding Thursday, so made for an amiably frustrating Wednesday, and really drove home the extent to which the day of the week influences my mindset going into a crossword. But I'll forgive just about anything for audacious fill like MENDACIOUS.

In awe of this construction!! What an immense payoff!

I know this is not the space to complain about yesterday's crossword, but today took me literally half the time that did. Am I the only one thinking that Thursdays have been easier than Wednesdays for some weeks now - what gives?! But that's not to say anything bad about *this* puzzle. I had a lot of fun solving, and thought the theme was very clever! There wasn't any annoying nonsense fill, no frustrating cluing... I am deeply satisfied by this one :-)

For solvers of a certain age (millennial), there is nothing "sexy" about a RAWR 😧 The maxim of the 00s was "it means 'I love you' in Dinosaur," usually accompanied by a cheesy illustration. I have never seen this unusual bit of slang in any other context!

I loved this theme, and I felt like most of the cluing was the perfect Thursday level of difficulty - but I want to join the chorus of voices that were hindered rather than helped by "six words." That really slowed me down! The payoff was great once I got it, though. Also, can we all agree to never have ELHI as fill ever again?

Troublingly tricky for a Monday! It felt like a lot of clues just weren't getting through to my brain. "Bad you!" ??? Given the theme I thought it was supposed to be like something you'd say to a dog to get them to stop eating your homework. My total lack of fluency in legalese also didn't help. I also have to, like everyone else, complain about BRITICISM. But some positivity - I loved SEEYA crossed with BYE in the bottom right corner, which my left-to-right and top-to-bottom brain always parses as the "end" of the puzzle. Cute!

Technically the clue for DISTROS is correct, but its colloquial usage typically just refers to different flavours of operating system, which threw me off a little. But I suppose I should just be happy that Linux still merits a mention at all! Anyway, apart from the eternal frustration of ORANG, I really loved this puzzle. Clever theme, nice graphical component, and hits just right for a Wednesday!

Babe - fine, gender neutral even. Missus - personally this one makes my skin crawl. Dame - nobody says this anymore. And the magic trick was left in the past with the colloquial dame for a reason. To everyone scolding those who didn't enjoy the theme: take a second to think about why it's never a scantily-clad man getting cut in half.

The glow of satisfaction I got from filling out NAILS IT as my last entry and seeing the congratulations screen pop up - unparalleled. Also pretty proud of myself for knowing ORAN from The Plague! Demanding but do-able, the perfect Saturday for me.

Just charmed by the CLAY dreidel in the center!! Thanks for the fun solve!

LOVED this, what a great start to my Tuesday. Pleased to see one for the millennials: THE AUDACITY was just right. The top right corner was one of my last empty spots and there was a point where I had __CKNO for 16a... and I was like... "Seriously?!" How's that for a fitting theme!

Fun puzzle! I totally blanked on LAR because in all my eight years studying Latin I never once saw that word in the singular - lol. But did anyone else feel a little unsatisfied by the cluing for 26d? Tacos are messy to eat anywhere. And many other things can ruin a car!

This was a struggle, especially the top-middle. Got multi-naticked by TOTAL-OSTER-HIRT-REOS, still not sure what DDS are, didn't get WHOLE from the clue because typically a bulk purchase is not just a whole bag, no? I can see the thematic incentive to clue TOTAL that way, but it doesn't even have a hyperlink on the General Mills Wikipedia page. Ask me how I know that. Ha ha. However, quite proud of myself for guessing AKRON with only one crossing because I knew Mauna KEA, and I knew MAC from the other day. And I always enjoy seeing a lot of X in an Xword.

Fun start to the solving week!! I loved the theme. I also love these oddly reassuring moments where I get a glimpse of a world completely beyond my sphere of existence and the ensuing relief that it's not one I inhabit: if someone asked me to HONEY-DO this or that, I would make like a melon and split.

Really enjoyed this one, and I always like extra limitations like the theme Ts!

I've got no problem with the US-centricism of the theme - I think these clues were fun even if I didn't know them all and needed the crossings to help. And it is an American crossword after all. But the crossing of Beltway Bigwigs and Hoosier Hoopers is quite cruel. For those not familiar with slang terms for different regions, this is already tough. To add insult to injury, some of us just do not know our sports, and also nobody actually says POLS, do they? I have certainly never heard or read it in the wild.

Felt really proud of myself for working out this theme, even though I had never heard of a double reverse in football! Ultimately a very satisfying solve, perfect for a Thursday.

Loved this crossword!!! What a treat for my morning!

Such a charming theme, loved it!!

I actually gasped out loud when I worked out the theme!! Incredibly satisfying!

Struggled with this, not least of all because I really thought I was onto something when I immediately clocked that the center of culture is a TEE, and that the voices were carrying because WE ALL HEARD. Nevertheless, this was a solid bit of DEVILRY!

I have only one complaint - the trivia cross of the Partridge Family and golf makes me feel like I may as well be from SATURN, I simply had to guess there. (I also didn't know DELTA BURKE, but crossings happily got me there.) But the theme is so charming that I can't be mad. It's always nice to see some truly original wordplay!

Loved this puzzle! Exactly what I want from a themeless, with lots of fun clues and zero annoying fill. 9D was perfect 💀 Congrats on the debut!

Absolutely perfect Thursday - a fair bit of guessing on my part, but I loved all the trickery and the process of sorting it all out!

Happy to help you win - and what a wonderful puzzle! I had all UPs, and the elation I felt when I realised I could also go DOWN was unmatched.

I had never heard of a LAYETTE in my life and had to guess at the Whitman quote for my last bit of fill, but that's more than made up for by the immense satisfaction I got by being able to fill in SOME LIKE IT HOT as my very first answer. Cute puzzle!!

I was surprised to finish this and find that it wasn't my best Tuesday time - such a smooth solve!!

Although we can all agree that RED means stop, here is at least one dissenting voice who would say that AMBER is a shade of orange, not yellow.

Beyond impressive! Congrats to the constructor! It's always a satisfying solve when I can get something like TIRADE for Philippic with just the A. I got the left side pretty fast, and then puzzled for a while over the right. Perfect level of challenge for a Saturday. I've felt some recent end-of-week crosswords were either too hard or too easy - this is just right.

Mostly fun puzzle with some delightful fill, but MERC/EDIE is a vicious natick for those of us from abroad, especially when 33a could easily have been IDEAL DATE. Possibly I'm just too young to be anything other than icked out by calling a partner a "mate." More amusingly, got completely tripped up by pattern recognition, fully expecting "Grande opening?" to be the ever-present ARI. Pleasantly surprised to have been wrong!

Got totally messed up by the crossing of ODOULS and LETS. Would never have got that without Googling. Also, SERVO - another tough crossing. Incidentally, it's Australian slang for a gas station. QANDA is a popular Australian current affairs show. All this and UGG - not sure if coincidental? Anyway, made it to the end, but felt kind of UGH, GUESS SO about it.

Loved this puzzle! Thanks for the fun morning solve!

Loved this theme - so clever!!! Also thought the clue for SIMILE was super cute. All in all a perfect Wednesday!

I loved this theme!! I found some of the trivia quite hard (needed to look up the NBA to unlock the NE corner) but that didn't trouble me at all, because this is truly just so clever. Kudos!!

I'll allow that Moonlight Sonata is a song (ohne worte, etc), but my friend and I were discussing how that bonus revealer kind of ruined the puzzle for us. MUSIC OF THE NIGHT is cute and charming as a reduplicative revealer/theme entry combo! The very prosaic SONGS plopped down the bottom feels like a heavy, unwelcome incursion into the whimsy of the theme.

Really cute puzzle, loved the theme! Congrats on the debut!

I was able to solve this pretty smoothly despite having only the faintest idea of what the movie is even about! But somehow I guessed SAY IT THREE TIMES before all the other theme entries, and I couldn't help but wish it had been Bloody Mary, haha.

I'm with Caitlin - I genuinely still don't understand 42A. Proud of myself for getting ROTATE CLOCKWISE with only three crossings though. Ups and downs.

Definitely my favourite puzzle in a long time, and on a Thursday no less!! I actually gasped out loud when I worked out the trick. So clever, some really fun clues (31d, 61a), and no annoying fill either. The kind of puzzle I wish I could do again for the first time.

Cool theme, I felt very smart when I worked it out. But had to scroll the comments to find how "Gate" lead to RECEIPTS, and to be frank, I still don't buy (haha) it.

OMG, I did actually get my personal best. 3:41 !!! And I feel like I paused in there to be like "am I tripping, is it really Friday?" But reading the comments, I see that this is simply because I'm in my early 30s. Lol. I'll take the win!