XWord Muggles Forum

Where The Wild Things Are

The answer to this meta is the emotional impetus of the Wild Things

It occurred to me this would be a good title for a meta. This one's a little hard but it's doable. It's even doable by the very standard methods if you allow just a slight variation to the process. A starter nudge: The entries contain two hints to the mechanism as well as several themers. The grid fought me every inch of the way. (Is there a term for grid entries where you just have to pound letters with a hammer just to make thinks work?)

Anyway, Where are the Wild Things? And what is their emotional impetus? Let's find out. LET THE ..... well, you know...

https://crosshare.org/crosswords/0zrl7p ... things-are

First nudge. Two of the entries are hints to the mechanism. As well there are several themer entries

Nudge two. It's not the answer to the two hint entries that are the hint. It's the clues.

Nudge 3: In nudge 2, I wasn't really considering 25D or 56 to be hints. (The hints and the themers are all across entries). But, yes, The Title says it All. You must figure out where the Wild Things Are. And one of the across clues tells you exactly where they are| As well as what they are

Was able to finish the grid (no small feat for me!) but the gist of the nudges and what to do with them is still eluding me.
Busy weekend -- will check again later --

Clever puzzle, I really enjoyed it! Thank you!

Nudge 4: 10A is one of the key hints. "Let the wild rumpus start!" was a key phrase from the book. There are three odd things about this entry Why is RUMPUS in all caps?If the answer is WILD is it kosher to include the word "wild" in the clue? Well, there isn't too much to this. I just wanted to make sure this entry was meant to be a hint is all.Wait? Isn't it "Wild Things "? Why did I write "wild animals"?

Nudge 5: Okay, enough about the two hint entries (while I've only talked about one hint entry but if you found one the other should match), you still need to find the themers. How do you find the themers? Well, I've already told you how to find the themers, and what to look for in them.

Nudge 6: I went to the wild corners of the earth to foreshorten Thrace

The was some confusion about the nudges. There are several types of entries the apply to a meta but I'm not sure what the vocabulary are. But when I referred to "hints" (there are to entries that are hints), I meant clues and answers whose intended purpose was to give a hint as to how the mechanism works. They are not actually clues or entries that are pieces of the meta puzzles I like to call these "triggers" but what good is it to have a vocabulary word that nobody else uses. There are two such entries in this puzzle. (As well as two or three more that support but don't actively hint). These are quite different than any of the entries that are pieces of the meta.

To my mind also pieces of the meta can have different types. "Themers" are key entries that contain important pieces. Usually "themers" are meant to be found. But there can also be hidden parts you need to decrypt that are not actual themer entries. At least be my reckoning there are. Maybe I'm wrong and maybe anything to do with piecing the meta together is a "themer". (Again what is the point of a vocabulary used by one?). But I always thought there was a distinction between themer entries and .... other encrypted entries. Anyway, I claimed the several themers were all across entries. I stand by that but maybe you shouldn't

That was one WILD meta - I am amazed that you were able to construct that! Thanks for the puzzle and all the patient nudging!

Brilliant! Really clever work, thanks for the fun challenge!

Final Nudge: So to recap all the nudges: You are looking for "wild" animals in a RUMPUS that is made of themer entries.

And the nudge after that Tame is the opposite of wild. There are Tame Things as well as Wild Things but they are not hidden.

Needed every single nudge, but finally got it. Thanks for the puzzle, Woozy!

Well, I "got" it -- but I'm not sure I "get" it -- or all of it anyhow.
But it was quite an adventure!

Now what's to eat?

Thanks, woozy!

One of these days I'm going try to find why people found some things easy and others impossible.

I didn't think this was easy but I thought I left a clear path. My thinking was that 10A would clearly be the key clue. It tells you to look for animals and clue 67A tells you that "wild" = anagrams. So you have find anagrammed animals in themers. The themers are probably the centrally located long ones an you should probably see HORSE in one of them. RUMPUS was meant to be conspicuous and the long central themers first letters spell UMPU so looking for R and S it should be clear where they are (symmetry). There are six animals in clues and if that weren't obvious some of the clues were unnecessarily contrived to contain the animals. And it I'd clear the animals in the clues are the anagrammed animals. And what do you do when you have alternate grid entries of a theme. You take the first letter of them and see if they spell anything. So in theme order they spell MAD MAX, the angry boy whose fit of snit brought the Wild Things into existence.

I suppose part of why it may have seemed difficult is it worked backwards. We needed the alternate entries and the animals first to find the the.ers rather than the other way around. But meta solvers should be flexible.

I nearly blew it though. My first clue for 51D was "Yay, little paridae bird! You show them! ('Did you understand the clue?' 'Yeah I -----')" but I caught myself on time. Howe er the first few hours of puzzle going live I had 63D clue as "A properly cultivated and prepared lobster should be well---". Oops..... Hmmm. Actually "Bible Story" would have made a really good themer. Or Bowel Obstruction....

Ok, I'll tell you what made this one difficult for me: the cluing. So many very long clues just made me think that if the mechanism was in them, it would just be too much work. So I didn't even attempt this one. My loss, I know. But you did ask!

benchen71 wrote: ↑Sat Feb 10, 2024 3:26 am Ok, I'll tell you what made this one difficult for me: the cluing. So many very long clues just made me think that if the mechanism was in them, it would just be too much work. So I didn't even attempt this one. My loss, I know. But you did ask!

Well, that's fair enough.

Short cluing is, for me, much harder than it would seem or ought to be. Say the entry is a simple word like TAKE and ... okay, how to a clue for a word like "take", take is ... take. I guess if I calm down and think slowly "take" can be an acted movie clip and wait... how do I put that in words and meanwhile I have 78 clues to get through and I get punchy and ...

But okay... I guess I will make an effort to make the clues shorter. It's just... you know, unoriginal clues are so ... unsatisfying to settle for. But noted, that'd be a weakness of mine. (I'm working on a meta where my latest idea will be difficult probably for the exact opposite reasoning.)

Was the ESC crossing ISM in the center an easter egg?

MMe wrote: ↑Sun Feb 11, 2024 5:01 pm Was the ESC crossing ISM in the center an easter egg?

No. An easter egg implies intent.

A weakness I have is designing grids so that to fit symmetry but have entries of reasonable length without painting myself in a corner. Anyhow I had POLYMORPHISM and MOISTENINGUP (one of the weirder entries) and to a less extent UNFORGOTTEN and USERHOSTILE tying me down so getting *anything* of *any* size to fit in the middle of a grid was one of the areas where "the grid fought me every step of the way".

The very first submission was for ESCAPISM and I did wonder where that came from.

FWIW I enjoy and appreciate the longer stream-of-consciousness style clues. I consider them bonus entertainment.

Thank you. But I have to admit when the metanisms is in the clues then steam of consciousness clues can obscure them.