Title: “Rising Force”
Prompt: This week’s contest answer is a plural noun.
Answer: BUBBLES
Correct entries: 479

What was our “Rising Force” last week? Solvers couldn’t help but notice that seven squares in the grid had to be left blank for their crossers to make sense. For example, [Mathematician’s sets] at 31-D was the nine-letter SUBGROUPS, which required its last square to be left blank to accommodate the five-letter [A single time] at 73-A, whose blank space was in the middle (ON CE).

75-A gave us a hint: [Soft drink that’s clear, like certain squares in this grid when it’s solved] = 7-UP.

Now what? Well, the clear squares are all in the seven long down entries, and they’re all at the bottom of those entries. Combined with the puzzle’s title and the fact that each of those seven contains the bigram UP, maybe we need to look upward from those clear squares. But how far up? 7-up, of course! Count 7 spaces upward from each and the squares spell out, from left-to-right, contest answer BUBBLES, which indeed rise without fail in each refreshing glass of 7-UP ever poured.

This played in bifurcated fashion for solvers: got a lot of “too easy for Week 3 of 5” notes, but also a lot of “seems hard for a week 3 of 5.” But I think we can all agree that Sprite is better than 7-UP anyway.

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This week’s contest answer is what it often takes for puzzlers to solve tough metas.