Mochi

I LOVED THIS PUZZLE! I got ripped abs first and didn’t get what it meant for awhile, until i realized it said to make the clues make sense, not the answer. Getting the trick was so deeply satisfying, and then as i got each subsequent clue’s answer i had an awesome thrill as they fell into place each time. I liked how even getting the trick i had to think for awhile to get the answer, and needed some of the crosses for help. Baby Talk was the last one I got, because I kept reading it with the emphasis on ‘by’ rather than ‘talk,’ so getting ORALLY actually made me understand the clue itself. Also loved how lots of the other fill required a lot of thought, I had to not be too precious with my answers and erase and retry things until it all puzzled together. It took me a pretty long time and a break in between but no lookups and no cheats, which made this extra satisfying. Great debut!!

Really fun puzzle!! Perfect start for a Monday, and maybe was a personal best time for me! (Idk how to check tbh) My favorite clue was “legendary stoner,” I laughed out loud when I realized the answer. Great debut!!

So fun! I loved this puzzle, got the trick fairly early but got held up for a sec bc i got RATOUT first and so i thought that GUTTER (which was my first thought) was somehow gonna be a different word/term that had R-A-T somewhere in it that would need to be omitted. Luckily the other entries clued me into the xx-TO-xx convention

There’s not enough appreciation here for the two references (kinda) to Mean Girls in today’s puzzle! One in the clue and then also with Janis Ian, who is also a mean girls character. I thought that was cute. Overall i really liked this puzzle although i also didn’t love the x’d in clue

I loved this puzzle!! I had already solved CANDYMACHINE before getting to the revealer clue, so once there I got to see the gimmick immediately, which is so cute! Then once I realized it could be a PB i sped up a bit and got it! Also with how my solve worked out i filled in HOLEY and then HOLI one after another, which i really appreciated =)

I hated this puzzle, and then I loved this puzzle!! I worked at it for awhile, ignoring the themes and plonking in words as best I could, sure that half of them were wrong. I felt hopelessly stuck, until i took a break and came back to it, and suddenly not only was i solving more clues, I suddenly got the theme, opening up most of the rest of the board! I got stuck again on the NE corner, bc I’ve never seen cheers and i don’t know basketball. My husband gave me ANDONE(he’s done this for me before too but for some reason it won’t stick in my brain), I looked up BOYD, and getting BOYTOY got everything else for me. I really liked the clue for ABBA, especially as i filled it in confidently on the first pass, then kept erasing and re-entering it throughout the rest of the solve as I wavered in my opinion, so it was nice to have been right about it Last to fall was PIANO/NONO, as I had typed NOgO at first and never realized to go back and correct Thanks for a fun Thursday!!

I LOVED THIS PUZZLE Fill was easy and fun but i kept a lookout for the theme while solving, thinking there would be a trick and that maybe my answers would be incorrect bc of it. But instead i had the delight if seeing the trick with only the top half done, getting to play with my fill (decided to go with Joan cusack and she hulk) and then having the theme help out with the bottom half. I only wish the puzzle was bigger, since it was so smooth that it was over too soon!

Fun puzzle!! I found it to be pretty straightforward and simple to fill in, so it seems perfect for a Tuesday, and I’m surprised to see lots of complaints about it. I guess I’m not super surprised that not a lot of people knew NUYORICAN, although it is definitely a term, and one I’ve heard for years now, so I think it’s a perfectly legitimate entry. More surprised to hear people not know AREPA, or to complain about RAH and DASHIT. The first I thought was pretty common (and really good, you should try one if you haven’t yet! They even have them at Trader Joe’s premade, although those ones are bad). RAH is clued so well to me and makes so much sense, it’s super common to see people leaving comments like “Let’s gooooo RAHHHHH” when they’re pretending to get hype about something. And DASHIT, first I had DArnIT, and then got it from the crosses, and have heard it from plenty of period pieces so also don’t feel like that was too hard for a Tuesday. I did get stuck on the SAHL/SHAH cross for a bit and had to run through some letters to see what made sense, especially have never heard of SAHL, although it seems like a lot of commenters have (I don’t remember him from past puzzles either, oh well); so I’m wondering if some of the tougher clues from today are just a generational gap thing. Regardless, I had a great time with this! And i really liked the crossing clues for AS I LIVE AND BREATHE =)

After a tough Friday and Saturday for me, it was nice to be on the same wavelength with the constructors and breeze through the Sunday! I never look at the title of a Sunday until after i complete it, so seeing the themers come together was super fun, and i liked a lot of the fill in general; being slightly younger it was nice to be able to immediately fill in answers like EBOY and YEET without needing any crosses =) usually the random slang is a little older and not what my first thought would be!

I loved it!! Theme was cute, was challenging but still able to complete without looking anything up, and was four minutes below my average Thursday!! I took a few hours break between completing it and then when i came back the wormholes really clicked into place and was able to finish everything out. The top middle section was hardest for me and was the last wormhole i filled too, so it was super satisfying to get it in the end. I also really like seeing OVA above the portal for CANCY which almost fills out the answer itself, very cute

Like several others, I usually hate clues that reference other spots in the grid, but today’s was fun and refreshing! I loved figuring them out this time and skipped around to fill in all the theme answers for once instead of ignoring skip around clues as i normally do. Also have never heard of MENDACIOUS, so TIL! I was getting antsy that all my fill was wrong so that was my very last word, so happy to get the gold star with it!

Super fun, and I loved the Pooh bear clue/answer like everyone else. Also loved the (coincidentally?) placed ARO next to ICE, reading kind of like aro/ace. I only had trouble with the FSU/FLA clues, as I had no idea and had IsNOT for awhile. Only got it by running through letters there but finally got my gold star =)

Came to see if anyone else was like me in thinking the nested clues would be built off of each other to create each next word. As in, the center clue would be a short word, the middle clue would be a longer word with the short word enveloped inside it, and the outer clue would be a long word encompassing both inside of it. It took me awhile to work out that there were actually three short words split in half that combined to create a new phrase. Especially since my first full solve was 11D, where DO ES and MA AM are the correct answers but I thought NYT was being racy with DO ES—>DOM MES (it kind of works as a lady’s title!)