Puzzle No. 36: Themeless (by Rachel Fabi and Brooke Husic)

Excited as can be to have two of my favorite people in the crossword world sharing a fantastic themeless puzzle on my site! I got to solve it myself while on Zoom with Rachel and Brooke, and it's pretty lit. (My favorite clue in the puzzle is 7D, in case you had any doubts.) Hope you enjoy!

-Matthew

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From Rachel and Brooke: "We’re thrilled to be back on Matthew’s site, especially since it’s our first published collaboration! This grid grew out of the realization that two (13) memes could cross at the 7th letter. Rachel pitched the cross to Brooke, and Brooke’s response was (obviously) that we should use the opportunity to make a diagonal grid together. This is Rachel’s first diagonal grid, and thanks to Brooke’s excellent guidance, Rachel now knows how to turn off “preserve symmetry” on Crossfire and plans to do so again someday. We’re really happy with the puzzle and hope you laugh as much at some of the clues as we did while writing them together.

If you liked this and want to see more diagonal crosswords, you can check out Brooke’s Inkubator puzzle that just dropped yesterday (she may or may not be on a streak of consecutive puzzles …)! If you liked this and want to see more themeless puzzles, you can donate a dollar or five to this transition fund, and when it reaches 400 donors our favorite editor Erik will drop a fantastic themeless puzzle (as will a few others, including Matthew!).

And finally, if you liked this and want to see more collaborations between Rachel and Brooke, well, they’re coming to a few venues near you in 2021. Stay tuned!"

pdf / puz / solution