Fire Safety

by Rose Sloan

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• Difficulty: easy

STOP, DROP, and ROLL! Cute. I'm sitting here wondering if the grid is intentionally shaped like a fire flower from Super Mario. That'd be doubly-relevant for the whole fire drill business. On second thought, it might actually look more like a toad with a bow tie.

I plonked 2/3 of the themers: SHORTSTOP and CRUNCHYROLL. MICDROP took me a few more crosses since I was thinking gymnastics for "end of a performance". You know, the whole landing with flared arms thing. What's that called? Either way, the ambiguity was resolved easily enough with the CHUCK and PIC gimmes.

My last corner was the lower-right corner, with NEPAL ("Only country with a non-rectangular flag") and DENY ("Refute") crossing MOPE, FLAN, and ALLY. I feel like it's way tougher than any other location in the grid.

I love the clue "River in the video game 'Hades'" for STYX. If you don't know the game you can infer that the clue is talking about the underworld (AKA Hades). I also wouldn't be surprised if the video game is more well known among the kids of today than actual Greek myth. How many kids have played Hades vs. how many have read Edith Hamilton? I rest my case.

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