Beta Versions (midi)

 Hi, it's been a bit! I've been busy in the meantime, and I've had two mainstream puzzles out in the past month--the May 4 Universal and the May 28 LAT, both collabs with Shannon Rapp. The LAT (my first Sunday puzzle!) should still be available when I'm writing this, so go check it out! I've also been busy with non-crossword stuff, including officially graduating from grad school, so you can all call me Dr. A Crossword Rose now.

As for this puzzle, I wanted to celebrate one of my favorite times of the year. (Not Pride, surprisingly enough, though happy Pride, and I may or may not wind up with enough inspiration for a Pride puzzle later this month.) It's a 9x9, which I've called mini here in the past, but the crossword community at large seems to have mostly decided that 9x9s are midis, so I'll be sticking with that label in the future. This puzzle also has a few 2-letter words, and I'm sad to say there isn't a particular inspired reason for that, but it allowed me to get much cleaner fill than I otherwise could in a 9x9 with three themers. Also the puzzle developed a Disney's "Descendants" minitheme. That one I can't explain or excuse.

Crosshare | Puz

The Ticking Clocks

 I'm not usually a fan of tribute puzzles, but a movie I really love has gotten popular on Tumblr recently, and I thought I'd make a crossword puzzle about it. If you're not familiar with the main subject of this puzzle, you might find the puzzle confusing (though you can learn more about the movie here). Outside of the theme content, I tried to clue this one pretty easy, so if you're a fan of the movie but not a seasoned solver, you should still be able to enjoy this!

For anyone who found this post through Tumblr and isn't a regular A Crossword Rose visitor, welcome to my blog! I have a bunch of puzzles that, honestly, aren't very much like this one at all but have a lot of Internet humor and other fun references in them. If you're interested in doing more indie puzzles, check out the Daily Crossword Links website, where you'll find links to all sorts of really cool crossword puzzles. I'd also like to specifically shout out AVCX, an indie crossword subscription. I'll be editing for their midi branch next year, and we hope to put out really fun and fresh midi crosswords (that, once again, are not very much like this silly tribute puzzle).

Puz file | Crosshare

Mini 3

 This is called Mini 3, despite being the first mini on this blog, since I previously posted 2 minis on Crosshare only (one of which I think is pretty great). It is also arguably not a mini, since I know 9x puzzles are often big enough to count as midis, but since I currently have no interest in making anything smaller than 7x and limited interest in making anything smaller than 9x, these count as minis here. Frankly, I don't plan to post a ton of them, since I feel like I'm now at the point where making 15x (or at least 11x) puzzles is better practice, but sometimes you got to do something small and quick, you know?

Anyways, this time, my reason for doing something small and quick is that I have, once again, redone my word list set up, which I'm learning is a never-ending task. This is equal parts fascinating and frustrating for me, given that most of my actual work involves cleaning and processing a lot of language data, but I'm hoping my current efforts will pay out in future puzzles (and am very happy to share my work with other constructors). Beyond that, the seeds here should be fairly obvious once I tell you that my seed list is heavily focused on both Internet culture and female singer-songwriters (and I've had the clue for 6A rattling around in my head for a bit).

Thanks to my sister for test solving. If you have any thoughts on the puzzle (or on word lists), hit me up!

Puz file for bot friends | Direct Crosshare link