Erin

I thought the theme was cute and was hoping to solve with just downs, but the frequency of proper nouns thwarted that effort 🤷‍♀️

AYCARAMBA, I had NINJA in place of GINSU for the longest time - and I suspect any other millennials who did not grow up in the US might also have?

This is the first music themed puzzle where I got the pieces by knowing them as opposed to solving crosses. It might be generational. I am a classical music loving millennial and had no issues with the Beethoven clue. I enjoyed HYSTERIA, MILIEU, ALGEBRA, and BITEME. Congrats on the debut!

I might be one of the minority who got the theme right away but struggled with the niche fill! MANZANILLA, OSAGE, LAHTI, DONHO were hard for me in the SE. I also confidently went with HAMMAM over CATSPA for 1D so was off to a funky start

I was suffering until I got the trick, which took way longer than it should have (any other millennials?) I hadn't heard of FIEF or NAZCA - but I thought IMAGE crossing JPEG was cute

I didn't even notice they weren't regular anagrams until reading the column. For me, this one was a FREEFORM mix of clues that were gimmes and obscure trivia. I learnt that PRAWN is used to refer to slightly larger crustaceans sold in US grocery stores, regardless of species. Where I've lived outside of the US, most of what would be called shrimp here are labeled as PRAWNs. Apparently the species are somewhat different but the terms used interchangeably in labeling and most home recipes. Either way, it turns out I have no clue what I'm eating!

I thought fitting in both REFI and REPO was cUTe And also that despite the rebus this was doable and suitable for a Wednesday. The only thing that delayed my "Aha" moment was that it wasn't a Thursday.

I loved the ILLEST clueing on this Wednesday and thought the theme was SLYLY neat

I found this hard for a Tuesday, and part of that was putting PASTA in confidently for OPERA. Maybe I should do these after breakfast..

I thought the main fill was great and was going so fast... until I got very stuck on the center. I had OLAF instead of YETI for way too long.

Somehow managed a Thursday PB but not get the trick. I think they went easy on the crosses today. Wish I figured it out myself, cute theme and impressive construction. I enjoyed the AI sub-theme

I channeled my inner taco lover a little too hard in the SW corner and confidently put in CARNITAS instead of ALPASTOR, and had BUCHE instead of ASADA 🌮

I found this challenging as a STEM PhD. Hadn't heard of NOSEEUM or a neon TETRA before. An impressive number of celestial answers in there not directly included in the theme, well done!

Lots of misdirection for me when I confidently went with LUCY (LOOSE-Y?!) instead of MATT, and NORETURNS instead of DONOTIRON