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Cool puzzle but there should be an easier way to find the theme clues at a glance. Perhaps clicking on one would highlight the rest of them?

i swear if one more western crossword constructor refers to an ORANGUTAN as an ORANG again....

Stop trying to make ORANG a thing, it makes no sense, just stop.

This is unacceptable. What is the editor thinking? After that tough Sunday and Saturday, now they put a REBUS in a Tuesday puzzle?!

This was a disappointing puzzle for south east asians. As stated by a previous commentator, beef adobo isn't a thing. And I would like to add that ORANG also isn't a thing. I have voiced out this error on ORANG here before which was widely agreed in the comments section, so it's baffling how the editors just ignore this egregious error. Just clue it as "person in Bahasa" or "___ Utan"....is it so hard?

As someone who isn't from America, I really struggled with this one. TOTAL, AKRON, USTEN, AFLCIO, and all the cereal brands really made it a challenge for me. I'm just glad the constructor didn't throw in any senators or judges into the mix, it would have been very painful for me.

from a far away country with no Spanish knowledge or geographical knowledge of the western world, and I completed this with no lookups and a gold star at 25mins. The long clues weren't difficult to me, and I felt like I was on the same wavelength as the constructor it's crazy. Haven't seen STIMMING before but love it's inclusion here. Overall, didn't know a good fraction of the words here but hella clever clueing allowed me to suss them out with the crosses!

this puzzle was AMAZING. I am terrible at rebus and theme puzzles, and as a foreigner i didn't know more than half of the answers, but was able to suss out everything because of the clever clueing. the only thing i didn't get was DOA ( i had DOi) and HEWS (i had HEmS), as they were crossing some pretty obscure words (to me). Even though i had to reveal puzzle for those, it was still an enjoyable experience!

I had LeoTardBAR before shortly correcting it due to the crosses. Now I wish they were an actual thing, would be fun to see!

Not sure what's up with the comments today. I'm a relatively new crossworder from a far away country, and I easily completed it within 30mins and no lookups. I found this really fun, no rebus and plenty of gimmes to help figure out the theme!

This is one of those puzzles I thought I needed to cheat, but didn't. What a lovely 30 minutes of solving it was, and the crosses were masterfully done too. Of course I would have no idea which naturalist was buried in Westminster Abbey, but throw in an A, W and N, and I do know a last name associated with natural science. Most of the puzzle went by like this, and I got the gold star while learning many fun facts along the way. Thanks for this gem!

Unpopular thumbs up here. I usually struggle on Thursdays, but this was a breezy 25mins for me. The theme aided a lot once I got the revealer, helped me extrapolate which letters were needed for one of the clues on a given side. I found this puzzle more friendly to asians with easy gimmes like TOTORO and PLUM, and there were no natick crosses for me. Loved the flowers and prizes clue too! Just sharing my experience to encourage the constructor, must be tough reading all the negative feedback

coming from a place very far and very different from NY, this was a fairly easy solve with no lookups. Learned a few different words and alternative spellings of words, very fun and uplifting start to the week. Thanks!

GAg instead of GAB killed me though, but this was a fairly easy but fun thursday! I was admittedly scared of the daunting long hyphenated clues, and 1A and 10A made me feel like there were rebuses, but with a combination of clever clueing and lucky guesses, ENGINES started appearing to me and i immediately knew where it was going. Genius construction, clever clueing, this is the type of crossword where you feel you had a great conversation with the constructor and could be good friends with them :)

I'm normally average at crosswords, but being singaporean, I immediately got MAPOTOFU, and had no hesitation entering the rebus. I didn't know a lot of the words, but the amazingly great start led to a 24 minute finish with no hints or clues. I wonder if any other enjoyer of asian food experienced the same thing

From nerdy entries like INERTIA and RAID, to smart puns like BRAFITTING and TANS, and even relatable quips like how we all need some ALONETIME, this puzzle was a homerun for me. Totally enjoyed it!

i had luTES for KITES. Plenty of other natick crosses for me include; WILDE/DEVA, SAMOVAR/RAISA, LEONORA/RENO. It was a brutal puzzle to solve but i really enjoyed getting the long ones, which were surprisingly quite attainable with some perseverance!

Thanks to the puzzle constructor! I managed to solve this without any lookups or clues, and in that satisfying process have also learned many new things. I have heard of the GUTENBURG bible but didn't know they invented the printing press; RUMBALL sounds like something i'd love to try one day; and I was stumped for a few minutes at the end with SIs/sARQ. In my region, root beer is A&W, I wonder how BARQ tastes like compared to it. Very apt puzzle theme for near the end of the year! Inflation ain't kind, hope everyone gets a huge PAY BUMP!

I like today's puzzle. NOICE.

who else confidently went with QRCODE on 28A? Took me a while to realise :)

coming from a country with zero baseball or spanish, I was surprisingly able to easily suss out the middle left portion easily, while learning a new couple of things. Very breezy and fun theme for a Tuesday, thanks for the creative and educational puzzle. Thinking if 46A could be also clued as "Risky... or risqué choice of surfing apparel" :P

Fun and breezy puzzle for my morning commute! Love the clueing and the clever wordplay. I even have time to comment how much I like this one!

Everyone's talking about how they like the inclusion of RUBBER, but can we get some applause for ARMOIRE too? Haven't seen it in a while but I love that word, makes me feel sippin wine in morning dress suit

i felt silly not being able to figure out what the gimmick for "after" was, but the animal names made it easier to solve the "before". Loved the CHINASHOP clue, haven't heard of that idiom for a decade. Only nitpick is the second misuse of ROE this week in the NYT crosswords, it is not a garnish nor a delicacy in Japanese cuisine. It came to my mind as a possible answer but I almost didn't want to enter it for 119A as I thought it would have been too farfetched :(

coming from a far away land, I have no idea what NILLA, GMA and LAMESA is, so today's crossword for me ended in a brute force guessing game. TINCTS looks like more like a typo than an actual word, but I was so confident in my crosses it didn't matter. Had TINges at first though, until I changed it.

i found this enjoyable as a former rebus hater. At first i thought the black squares represented something underneath, but with a good combination of Tuesday level clueing and the revealer, it was easy enough to figure out the rebuses. I did not finish though as MURALIST crossing STUCCOS and REINDEER crossing 3 trivia names was too hard for me. Cool idea tho, i LIKED this one. For the rebus haters, just skip this one and do a Monday and Tuesday archive, we all know to half-expect rebuses on Thursday

fun puzzle! Love the hidden theme of ZOOM, black ICE, FISHTAIL, and SCRAP! I wonder if it was intentional or by pure ACCIDENT ;)

happily entered BAS into 10A at first, until i realised it takes more than that to be considered a research scientist. Oh well back to my job as a research assistant *sobs*

I was somehow on the same wavelength as the constructor and solved it within 20minutes! Got all the long ones almost immediately, what a satisfying solve! Was stuck for a while as I thought it was a clever play for tAOISTS to be on the PATH.... to somewhere I guess, but on a second check I realised MAIER makes more phonetic sense as a last name and MAOISTS were far more likely to lead a revolution

Indira indera indhra emiratis emirates emiraths? Tamara tamora? Psss psst seals teals? Today's puzzle was very easy to fill up, but I had to brute force single letters of some obscure clues. Great reminder to improve my trivia knowledge!

You know it's a good puzzle when you can suss out and learn a new words by slowly figuring out the crosses. Many smart clues, or maybe I'm just on the same wavelength as the constructor. Would have been cool to have seen NOBODY in there too? :)

SUCKINGFACE was hilarious. Can we have more childishly crude words? xD

Breezy 25 mins without understanding the theme. I only figured out that the asterisks answers contained a metal, but didn't make the connection that the clues actually makes sense when you remove the metal from the answer. I thought GROWINGOLD was GROWINGOut at first, and THEIRONY containing the pronoun THEIR only added to my initial confusion.

This was definitely a fast one. Seems like EPEE will be a mainstay in the Times crossword. Any clue relating to Olympics, duelling, poking, touching, that is 4 letters is sure to be EPEE

Can we talk about crossing JOE KOY with EDGY?

entered ragdoll for 18a at first until LAMAS came along. I miss my ragdoll :(

long crosses i got right away: CAPTCHA, ABRAHAM, GAMIFY, DNATEST, SPOILER ALERT, DATAMINE. NE corner was a breeze because of the crosses, SE corner required some picking at. Have no idea what a clementine is but mandarin oranges was just staring at me after completing a handful of the middle crosses. Super cool and accessible friday that felt rewarding once you connect to the same wavelength as the constructor, thanks!

21A reminds me of an instagram reel i saw of a mother asking her teenage daughter why she had an online receipt for HANDY NASTY

3 female names (4 if you count EDEN) in the SE corner is crazy work, was really fun to work out though thanks to the clever clueing. Now i'd like to see a puzzle that is able to fit all the names in mambo no.5, that would be fun!

what's a BOFFO?

Plenty of "naticks" for me here, and multiple possible answers. I had XOXO for SWAK, BAR for RAP, INEEDAhand instead of HINT. I filled everything up but didn't get the gold star, so I was so convinced that MIENS was wrong as it wasn't a word that made sense to me. Turns out NIcKI was actually NIKKI, and FAcIE wasn't a skateboard slang adapted from the word "face". I still solved it without hints or lookups in a comfortable half hour, so I think American solvers definitely had an easy one today!

I wanted 7A to be SOLONG, as in when you pass someone in a race you go "so long sucka!" Awesome puzzle though, love to have the fun gimmicks back on a Thursday, with clever cluing!