koty

I was excited at first, not a big history guy but I knew DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN and I figured there'd be a NIXON headline in there somewhere. But hey that's pretty fun trivia, surely I'd be able to suss it out from the crosses... Boy was I wrong. I enjoyed this for about 25 minutes and the other hour (?!) was an absolute slog. And that's only counting the time the clock was running, not the time spent in the shower running through the entire alphabet to figure out _ _ L soda. Woof.

A moment of silence for all the tuxedo cats (like mine) who will have their sun naps interrupted with a phone screen excitedly shoved in their faces. "You made it in, Gus! Look, that's YOU!" His response? I DON'T CARE 😒 Gotta teach this man how to read smh

got stuck on the NE corner for a bit because I, a trans man on testosterone, forgot that trans men take testosterone 🤦‍♂️

I liked the themed answers a lot but the rest of the grid was a bit trivia-heavy for me. Absolutely adored GROUCHOMARXMUSTACHE and WHATSTHEDAMAGE though

huge fan of MEN SOLVED MYSTERIES, might be top 10 for me. truly tickled. great puzzle!

Secret comment section today for true comment-heads ONLY >:) have a good weekend y'all (context: wordplay article has a URL/date error at the moment)

As someone born in TECUMSEH, raised in Pittsburgh (32A) and a bigtime Chappell ROAN(S) fan, Margaret whatever message you're sending me I'm listening

I moved almost a thousand miles away from my family in November, to downeast ME, and it was all worth it just to get 53A on my first pass

My favorite puzzle in recent history, no contest. A perfect example of how to make a challenging but still FUN solve! After my first pass I had only one or two filled and a few more penciled in. I was ready to be a hater, as lately this pattern has led to some real slogs. But as I found more crosses, tried more answers, and realized ISPEPSIOK was not just a silly answer to amuse myself but the true fill, my attitude did a full 180! Almost every answer took a little bit extra consideration but once I got them I immediately knew I had them right - SO satisfying. Can't say enough good things, hats off - you crushed this one!

the use of gen AI soured this otherwise enjoyable puzzle. i frankly don't care if it was just for one clue, or if the generated response was ham-fisted, we should continue to shame and refuse to endorse the inclusion of gen AI in modern society. fun little things like cursed DALL-E images paved the way to where we are now. i can't get with the whole 'cmaaahhhhnnn it's just one little clue relax' vibe anymore. with love from the friend who's too woke 🤷‍♂️

Confidently entered ITHASPOCKETS for 21D on my first pass, it hurt to delete

shoutout to @SOTTOvoce, thanks for making 34A a freebie

This was a toughie! But tough in exactly the way I like a Saturday puzzle to be - minimal trivia, maximum pondering and penciling in. Looking forward to the next one Jesse!

a real banger, kudos mr. ayas

I can't believe this was a debut, easily my favorite Friday puzzle this year or maybe ever. Intimidating looking at first but went just exactly how I want a crossword to unfold - a cross here, something penciled in there, the satisfaction when an answer finally clicks. Absolutely crushed it!

Tough one for me. Not knowing anything about lock configurations (a clue which I still don't really get to be honest) or Mrs. Gorbachev's name, I really liked GReeN for [here we go again]. Looked up ESSIE and guessed that the British actress was ELLIE for symmetry, that was cool but I've absolutely never heard of either of them. And in fact ESSIE isn't even the first result for Australian actress Davis... I'm kinda lukewarm on this puzzle personally. The highs of puzzling out the long answers with only a few letters entered were cut a bit by the trivia that I only had a chance at getting through crosses. But hey that's Saturday for you

rough one for me, between not being on the same wavelength and not knowing the trivia, i was 0 for 2. struggled through it and lived to streak another day

really enjoyed the way this came together for me, and loved the rebus puzzle style theme! great sunday 10/10

add me to the 'maggie' marks 😔🤙

i really enjoyed this one. constructor and i were on the same wavelength. "congress" was a great misdirect

I liked this one, I thought the aannsswweerrss were fun. Not a huge fan of some of the smaller fill, there's still one or two I don't get tbh. But personally I think there were enough gimme crosses to figure out the bit without too much difficulty, to me the double J was the giveaway. I read these comments every day and I have seen WAY less complaints about WAY worse puzzles. Curious what the difference here was. Seems to be a lot about the day of the week, maybe I wasn't bothered because I don't know the "rules" of each day.

Genuine question, because I usually skip the article and head straight to the comments to see what folks think - Is it typical for the article to point out that some of the answers are kinda iffy? E.g. today's points out the odd spelling of WEINIE and the atypical phrasing of BITES INTO Don't know why I happened to skim today's but was surprised by that, would have assumed it was kind of a united front type vibe.

banger - great first puzzle! huge fan of BAKE SALE and the John or Paul misdirect (I had Beatle for a while). Still not sure what BULL is in reference to the Pope but hey I'm not a huge Pope-head so you'll have that

Some days I am just not on the same wavelength as the clues, and today was one of those days - took me about 20 minutes over average. No qualms with the construction, cool puzzle! Just interesting how sometimes it clicks and sometimes it doesn't

I liked this one, some of the answers felt a little obscure or like one step removed but I'm not mad about it. I am, however, learning that we don't all pronounce paralegal the same way. I'm gonna have to find a video of people pronouncing it because in my head even if I add an accent it still sounds like 'pair' in that accent... It's never too early for a rabbit hole...