I thought this might be an original idea, but as it turns out, it played a part in at least one other meta, or so I was reminded by someone whose memory for these things is better than mine. (I’m not naming names, and “someone whose memory is better than mine” doesn’t do much to limit the field). I went ahead and finished constructing the puzzle anyway. That was several weeks ago. Then recently, something similar turned up in another WSJ puzzle. What’s a constructor to do? Go ahead and publish it anyway – at least, that’s what this constructor did.
One of the themers (72A) does not strictly hew to the format, but it's close. Coming up with these themers was challenging. My favorite among them is not my own creation but that of my niece. Try it yourself, please, and PM me your best candidates.
{Update: Solvers have called my attention to a big mistake: the order of two of the nine letters is inverted. My apologies.)
Thanks to
@Abide for advice and tolerance and to
@Joe Ross for indispensable technical assistance.
"Porcus" crosshare
"Porcus" PUZ
"Porcus" PDF
"Porcus" spreadsheet
![Image](https://www.xword-muggles.com/puzzles2/20230619-MMM-Porcus.png)