Chris

Finished it correctly and I have no clue what the theme was other than missing letters. I’d rather have a REBUS puzzle than whatever that was, and I hate REBUS puzzles generally.

I really enjoyed this puzzle. Something about it was just right for me difficulty-wise. I just kept circling and circling and eventually the top opened up for me but it took me longer than usual to feel like I was actually getting somewhere.

I’m solidly in the minority on this one as I found it clunky and not very fun. I spent the whole puzzle wondering what weirdness I was going to have to struggle through with 69A only to have it solve immediately when I put in the final letter. A theme that requires me to read the blog to understand isn’t one I generally enjoy.

I’m no big fan of so many rebuses and needing to get halfway through the clues before any reveal was tedious. But the real crime of this puzzle are the blinding white corners when viewing the grid in dark mode. This was among my least favorite puzzles ever.

I’m in the minority but I found this to be clunky, contrived, and a slog. The EVIF/FIVE is terrible and makes no sense to me no matter how others have defended it.

“Someone once told me that you can’t just put any old thing in a crossword puzzle and expect it to get published. I guess they were wrong.” This is such an accurate description of this puzzle. No clue on the theme but still solved it in one pass. Felt more Tue/Wed than Thu.

If the eyeroll emoji were to take the shape of a crossword puzzle. woof woof emu woof

Never a fan of gimmicks that result in nonsense fill like LIMBORED. Overall a very meh puzzle.