Someone wrote me shortly after the puzzle went up to claim that from a Downs-only perspective, JAW could easily have been MAW ( 60D: Big part of T. Once you drop the short Downs in the middle ( PAIL EYE BEEN), you've got most of the back end of FIEND by that point, I could see that the last words of the themers were "monsters" and so I ruled out FRIEND, wrote in FIEND, and then FLORETS dropped me down and I went on from there. You can see that I had the "S" the two "D"s and the "MON," and so through my highly-developed power of pattern recognition (or, you know, just through obviousness), I could put SPEED DEMON across pretty confidently without ever seeing the clue. But today, with no real trouble spots, I didn't remain in the dark for long. Downs-only can have you seeing things, for sure. My brain picks up on weird patterns, often not the ones it's supposed to pick up on. Weird that I never even noticed the possible TROLL / DEMON connection. That is, there's INTERNE TT ROLL and then there's SPEE DD EMON and I figured things might go on like this. that's the dumb in-house thing they call themselves?" And sure enough! Probably the weirdest part of putting this theme together was imagining, early on, that the theme would have something to do with the two words in each theme phrase sharing a last letter and first letter, respectively. Surprised when it happened with " SAILOR MOON," and then floored when it happened again with IMAGINEEERS. Seriously, though, the feeling of power when you can drop not one but both of the long Downs in a Downs-only solve with absolutely no crosses! Exhilarating. In the end, the theme felt pretty light (no revealer, very loose concept), but the answers were colorful enough, and the grid was clean enough, that I didn't mind. Before I got to that answer, though, I was quite enjoying this one, partly because the first two themers were interesting answer, partly because I was oddly psyched to see (and get, instantly) " SAILOR MOON" (long Downs can often be very tricky when solving Downs-only, but not today!). I mean, I can imagine the concept, even if I've never really heard the term before. My main reaction is "what is an ENERGY VAMPIRE?" Figuring out what the hell kind of vampire I was dealing with was by far the hardest part of solving this one Downs-only, though in the end, it wasn't that hard.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |