Come Full Circle

Rachel Fabi, of Syracuse, N.Y., is a bioethics professor at SUNY Upstate Medical University. Adam Wagner, of Oakland, Calif., is a creative lead at Patreon, a monetization platform for content creators.

The two were sitting together at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament last year when Wyna Liu walked by and said a phrase that sounded a lot like 113-Across. Adam said to Rachel, "Wait, that sounds like a revealer." Rachel instantly responded, "What if it's …" and then suggested basically the exact theme of this puzzle. They knew immediately they'd struck gold.

Rachel: I absolutely loved creating this puzzle with Adam, who is a generous, thoughtful, and brilliant constructor, and who kindly did the heavy lifting on figuring out how to make the center of the puzzle work. I am in awe of his theme-brain, and I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to work with him on a puzzle that really challenged me as a constructor. I generally prefer creating grids to writing clues, in part because grids usually have so many more interesting constraints than clues do, including rules requiring symmetry and all-over interlock. With this puzzle, however, we broke both of those rules (though not at the same time!) while piling on the tightest cluing constraint I've ever faced — by far the most fun I've ever had writing crossword clues!

Adam: Pop quiz — what percent of words in the English language do you think contain either an O or a C? I guessed ~18%. Turns out it's over 60%! Originally, that stat spooked me. I said to Rachel, "look, I think writing over 130 natural-sounding non-thematic clues without being able to use O or C is just impossible. What if we get stuck with a proper noun like CHEADLE that we have to clue without 'actor' or 'movie' or 'Don'? Or if we have to debut DALEK without being able to say 'Doctor Who' or BBC? Let's just make this as a Thursday."

But that's the thing about Rachel — not only is she an endlessly creative constructor (for more proof, go solve her '6/1' USA Today, or her 2022 Times collab with our shared bff Rebecca Goldstein), she's also the best kind of collaborator: someone who pushes you to be better. She immediately replied with the brilliant grid-spanning clue/answer combo at 32-Across. I was all-in from that moment on.

Both of us: One last thing — not only was this puzzle incredibly fun to clue — it was also a blast to title. There were SO MANY good options: Circle Back, Raiders of the Lost Arc, Getting the Band Back Together, Nothing To C Here. If you have any fun ones you can think of, come find us on crosscord!

Wow. The three BLOCKs going down from square 65 animate to black so the grid art can "come full circle" and turn what looks like a C into an O.

The italicized clues do the same trick — turn every C into O to match the answer.

• U.F.C. fighter → U.F.O. fighter
• Where many large cutlets are seen → Where many large outlets are seen
• Wild cats → Wild oats
• Chic venue that features great bands → Ohio venue that features great bands
• bcced → booed
• Bic filler → Bio filler
• Travelers' cases → Travelers' oases
• Arsenic's realm → Arsenio's realm