Fabio Juliano

What a gimmicky piece of you-know-what this puzzle was. So you're supposed to ignore the fact the downs need a letter that makes no sense in the across, except it's called CROSSwords. Quality matters, not novelty.

ALOP is not in standard online dictionaries, like dictionarydotcom and Merriam-Webster. However, I didn't have much trouble with that because I relied on the crosses. What got me for a good while was "YOUHEARDMERIGHT" crossing with ANYA because I thought it was "NOUHEARDMERIGHT" crossing with ANNA, but that was my fault for assuming the non-standard language was correct. I finally got it by using my fail-safe technique of staring at the puzzle and silently cursing it.

No ice is neat, huh? On the surface, it's bartender lingo, but could it also be a comment on the nation's current immigration policies?

Oo-la-la, a bilingual puzzle! I must say, en passant, that I feared for my streak. I thought about asking my belle amie for a little help, but she told me that would not be solving it à la loyale and I must do it tout seul. Sacré bleu!

Haitians speak Krèyol or "Creole" as their native language, but in modern-day Haiti basically no one identifies as a Creole. It's similar to how Americans speak English but don't identify as Englishmen.

As soon as I saw those clueless down entries, I knew there must be more to it, and, of course, there was. Even an inexperienced solver wholly unaware of Thursday's traditional trickery had a decent shot at figuring it out if they just kept filling. Not having wasted time panicking or ranting, I finished this one faster than my Thursday average.

There was an explicit hint plus a bunch of answers that seemed to be right based on the clue and the crosses, but that didn't quite fit. Plus, it's a Thursday. Ergo, rebus puzzle. Puzzles like this are part of the game if you hold yourself out as someone who can solve NYT puzzles.

This was a tough one. I had trouble getting even one whole answer until I finally could pin down MAGNETS and in time persistence paid off.

This was the hardest Thursday in a good long while, IMO. It reminded me of old Thursday puzzles from the '90s, which I have been doing from the archive.

I thought it was a good fill overall, even if FURSONA was an odious portmanteau. In any case, 200. Some have much longer streaks, but this is a good one for me.

I got the theme, I filled the grid, I checked and rechecked the fill, and it still wasn't over. No complaint about the puzzle itself, but it's amazing that a rebus with both letter grades wasn't accepted as correct.

BRAVA instead of BRAVO cost me a couple of minutes. So gendered. I'm not necessarily complaining, as it's in the dictionary, but I found it surprising.

I never heard of AMAZEBALLS and I hate Grunge music, so I'd never heard of its cross, the 13x platinum album TEN either. Plus, I can't have been the only one to put TOIL for MOIL. I guessed right, though, so I was out of there pretty quickly.

Unimaginative. Would have been better suited for a Monday.

It seems that the rule against nonsense in the grid, like RONEYES and THROWFOOP, has been definitely overthrown. Is it not true that in the past, regardless of any gimmicks like today's little loops, the grid wasn't supposed to display such gibberish?

Clearly, this was a response to the fact everybody hated the last Sunday puzzle, and with good reason. I broke my personal Sunday record with a time in the mid-teens, but I almost feel like I cheated.

I solved it unaided and in a reasonable time, so when I say I didn't like it, it's not sour grapes. It was just way too gimmicky. Since Thursday is the traditional tricky day, how about making Wednesday themeless but focused on quality and originality?

Very gimmicky. Made me think it was Thursday for a moment.

SLAPBASS. I thought it was SLAMBASS and the pariah was named LEMER. I mean, I don't know anything about playing guitars and there are a lot of people in the Bible. Naturally, I got the "Grrr, almost" message. Had to hunt, had a hunch that area was the problem, mentally went through the middle LETTER of LEMER still looking for a proper name. Then, when I got to P, it was like "Duh!"

My favorite mondegreen (that's a new one for me) is thinking Van McCoy's unforgettable disco song "(Do) the Hustle" said "To Nassau".

Am I the only Brazilian who solved this without cheating? Quite possibly, LOL!

Good puzzle. Fine quality, non-gimmicky.

Did anyone else have "HOTTAMALES" instead of "HOLYSMOKES"? That, along with my general unfamiliarity with the subject matter in the SW corner, threw me for a loop.

Pretty good. Just hard enough to be fun and a theme that's actually part of the solve.

If you can solve a puzzle easily while ignoring the theme, then the theme is pointless,is it not?

It was okay, if you like rebuses.

They waste time coming up with weird puzzles like this one, but they say they don't have time to publish an online version of the acrostic puzzles we all loved!