Rules are made to be broken

by Orca Jimmy Peniston

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• Difficulty: medium

It felt bad using hints on today's puzzle because I was just barely missing a few letters. There were too many references that went over my head crossed with words outside of my personal lexicon. Although, I'm not sure it's my fault with fill like COPAGANDA, SNOCAP, and POLYCULE.

SNOCAP might be the deepest candy cut I've ever seen in a crossword. I'm not convinced this candy has been referred to as anything other than "those white-sprinkly things", and I have never seen them outside of an unlabeled bin at a frozen yogurt place.

I tried to fit polygamy where POLYCULE was expected, an honest mistake for someone who has to go to Wikipedia to learn the difference between polygamy and polyamory. I guess POLYCULE is the noun where polyamory, but not polygamy, is practiced. Or something.

Outside of the fill I didn't recognize and a few references that might make sense if I had a Twitter account (looking at you, COPAGANDA), I thought the puzzle part of this puzzle was OK. If I didn't get stuck on a few letters I would probably have had a nicer solving curve.

The highlight of this grid was the clue to EEL that had me humming Dean Martin. The article in reference is provided here for your amusement (thank you Internet Archive).

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